Motion Sickness
by Wu Gang
Summary: Diverging at the start of volume 4, Jaune reforges Pyrrha's weapons into a massive sword. He seeks revenge against the one who killed her, even if it costs him his life. With a different semblance, Limit Break, he will be the one to slay Cinder. FF7, FF8, Dissidia Elements. CloudStrife/Sephiroth!JauneArc Eventual War of the Roses
1. I Let You Die I

**Summary: **Diverging at the start of volume 4, Jaune reforges Pyrrha's weapons into a massive sword. He seeks revenge against the one who killed her, even if it costs him his life. With a different semblance, Limit Break, he will be the one to slay Cinder. FF7 Elements.

**Cloud Strife is a character from Super Smash Brothers Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch and probably other things too. The comparisons between Jaune and Cloud are painfully obvious. So obvious, that this story is basically low hanging fruit.**

**This story picks up at the start of Volume 4 and continues with Jaune unlocking a different semblance, called Limit Break. You won't need to know anything about Final Fantasy in general or VII in particular to read this story.**

**I think that's everything so without further ado have some Lancaster stuff and nothing else.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"There you go, son." The horned smith heaved the heavy breastplate onto the counter before me. "It's gonna be heavier than you're used to, but you'll thank me the next time you go up against a set of claws." From the sound it made against the wood, I believed him.

I struggled briefly before conceding. The metal in front of me was a bit much to look at all at once. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't gotta say anything! Just put it on!" The smith turned towards the back and called over his shoulder. "I'll go get the rest."

"So... What are you waiting for?" Nora asked after only a moment had passed.

"Oh! Uh… Right." I walked up to the counter and took the chest-plate I was wearing off. "Guess I was going to grow out of it eventually." I set it on the counter.

I looked down. I'd traded my hoodie and jeans in for a blue cotton shirt that went up to my neck and a baggy set of black pants that went down to my boots. Mistral was honestly too hot with armor to put myself through my old hoodie, still had it, though. I still wore gloves, but I'd gotten new grey ones.

I was basically a new person.

"A sign of progress," Ren agreed with me except he seemed genuine.

Well if Ren thinks so…

Progress. It was hard to argue that I wasn't closer to being a huntsman now than I was before. The fact of being a huntsman and slaying monsters mattered dramatically less to me now, however.

I strapped the new piece to his chest. It fit snugly, no undue chafing at my joints was always nice. The new white with golden highlights looked good in contrast to my blue shirt. There was only one shoulder pauldron and I immediately strapped it to my left-hand side. I had found early on that no amount of lotion or baby powder could help with the constant rubbing of the metal over my fingers, so I'd taken to wearing thick finger-less gloves and developing callouses on the sides on my fingers. The gauntlets slid all the way up to my elbow. I stretched and flexed. They didn't impede my range of motion and felt get this, _comfortable._

"And we can't have a huntsman without his weapon." I looked up as the man set the newly forged shield and sword on the table. Qrow, Ruby's uncle, had brought Miló and Akoúo̱ to me from the top of Beacon Tower when he'd found Ruby there.

Miló had been forged into my sword. It was longer now and broader, too, but not so big that I thought I couldn't wield it. It was mostly white with the bronze trimmings and the deepest crimson of Milo had been turned around and spiraled into the dramatically longer handle and wider guard where it mixed with my own old blue and became a very dark, almost black purple.

Akoúo̱ had been melted down and added to my shield, much like its partner. The whole shield was more angular now. It was still symmetrical and was divided into two parts. It started off square before it tapered down to two separated triangular edges which left a narrow valley between them which ran only briefly before meeting white.

It was taller than before with the bronze of Akoúo̱ added mostly to the top and bottom and less to the sides. It would cover me better from ranged attacks. I'd found that without any range I would need some protection, so I was just free from a distance.

A gun was a great equalizer.

The taller shield had been Ruby's idea, she pointed out how much my legs got shot at school a lot even before. Then she got the opportunity to do something about it and if you gave Ruby a cookie...

"Made all the modifications you asked for." Yeah, my modifications. The shield and sword were linked together, forming a great cross shape. I reached out and held the shield in my hands, I strapped it to my left arm. It didn't compact like it used too, but the sword still fit into the shield, I just had to carry the entire thing on my back now. I drew the sword from the sheath with a soft whisper. "That was some fine metal you brought me. Accents the white nicely. Where'd you get it from?"

I felt the new weight of the sword in my right hand. It felt uncomfortable but mostly because I was used to the old weight, not because I wasn't strong enough. Time would change my preferences as I re-taught myself the muscle memory.

I was adjusting the memory rather than making new ones, so it shouldn't take as long.

"From a friend." I answered. The pommel was a bit longer than one would expect, long enough so that I could grip it comfortably in both hands with plenty of room to spare. I'd always found the amount of room to choke down and up on Crocea Mors to be lacking and when I'd mentioned it to Ruby, she flawless took it into the design.

I slid the sword into the shield until it clicked into place. Then I pulled the sword back and drew it with the shield. The shield folded over the sword and different sections of the shield began to slide over the length of weapon.

As I drew it, the motion it pulled parts of the shield with it, until I'd drawn a six-foot-long single edged broadsword. I brought the weapon around me and let my left-hand rest below my right.

It was heavy. Heavy enough that someone without aura couldn't possibly have wielded it for more than few minutes, if that. I pulled my right hand back and extended my left, easily holding it with one hand. I let my fingers run down the edge gently.

"Well," Nora demanded. "Is it or is it not also a gun."

"I told you it wasn't a gun every time you asked," I insisted.

"So it doesn't have another form."

I shook my head and strapped the entire contraption to my back. "No, it doesn't, it just has the two forms." I reached over my head and drummed by fingers against the handle over my head. I felt confident I'd be able to draw either form quickly. Or if I failed to do so it wouldn't be the sword's fault or because of where it was.

I just couldn't count myself out of things.

I'd have to practice sliding the shield onto my arm and back again to get the hang of it.

I finally turned around and nearly bumped into Ruby. She scrunched up her face at the weapon behind me. Big silver eyes looking up at the weapon. "How does it feel? Do you like it?"

"Like it was made for me." I rolled my wrists and flexed my forearms under the gauntlets again. "You're a genius Ruby."

"It's so cool!"

I laughed a little. "You knew what it was going to look like."

Ruby snorted before she covered her face. Turning slightly red. Generally more red. "Sure, on _paper_, it's another thing to meet face to uh- face," she stammered.

"Face to face huh," I smirked.

"Shut up. Stop looking at me."

I audibly slapped my hands across my eyes and mouth and even though I was blind and mute she kicked me in the shin.

"He cleans up alright." The smith smirked. "Don't you think? Say, you kids sure you wouldn't stick around? You've been good to this town."

We'd run a few patrols and hunts for the city to work out a deal to pay for the new weapon. We'd stuck around a few weeks killing Grimm for the small village and running the occasional odd job besides. Even a mecha-shift weapon as simple as this one wasn't cheap or fast to make.

Not well at least.

I opened my mouth and shut it, Ruby promised to hit me if I apologized for stalling them on it.

"_Its not just some silly errand."_

She'd shoved a finger in my face, too.

"_It's important."_

Nora and Ren honestly didn't seem to mind either not that I could always tell with Ren. It was like that with Ren.

Nora on the other hand couldn't seem to hide that she seemed to have something to hide.

"Sorry, but we've got another mission-"

"-Make it to Haven Academy, no matter what!"

"We've heard the next village over has a working airship."

The smith frowned. "No way to know for sure. Scroll signals were bad enough out here when Beacon Tower was still up. Haven't heard from Shion village in a while."

I looked at the village. Without global communication what would happen here? Could the kingdoms stay as they were?

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was awake when Ruby opened the tent we shared. Whatever dream I was having slipped from me even as I tried to grab it.

I said nothing, even as Ruby half crawled, and half crouched around the tent. I wanted nothing more than to go back and ignore my shift.

It was slightly uncomfortable, then, when Ruby ignorantly tried to nudge me awake.

"Jaune," she whispered. "Jaune, wake up."

"My shift?" I murmured back. I felt as much as I heard her nod in the dark. "Alright."

I blinked forcefully until I'd wrung all the sleep from my eyes and rose from my sleeping bag. I maneuvered past Ruby. I stretched picked up my sword and added water to finish the process of waking up.

I waited in the dark while Ruby got comfortable and slunk back into her bed-bag. "It's cold," she moaned. I couldn't completely stop myself from laughing. "I bet yours is warm." She grabbed the edge of her cover and pulled it tight against her.

"Wear more layers."

"Its not comfortable."

"Put more covers on?"

I heard her move to 'glare' at me. It was like pitch a few feet from my eyes in the tent, though. "That's not comfortable either."

"Well what would make you comfortable." I had to wonder. "This isn't a hotel or Beacon. All you have here is me."

"Ugh. You-I-" I heard the sound of her rolling in her bag. "Ugh. Night Jaune."

"Rest easy Rubes."

Ah yes. Second to last shift.

It wasn't so bad. When it became clear that first and last shift were most desirable, followed by second, it was intuitive that it was the shift for me.

Maybe it reminded me of me.

I stepped out of the tent into the absurdly early morning. The fact of the matter was that taking a shift as a huntsman was sort of subjective. Ren's sense of danger was good, so he didn't have to pay a lot of attention during his shift. He barely even had to be awake.

Which meant even a huntsman as mediocre as I was could still feel danger while training.

I held the broadsword out in two hands. First, I practiced my basic movements while holding the broadsword - attempting a few amateurish swings until I got a feel for the weight of it. The weight was a lot further forward than I was used to. I swept the blade in a wide arc and brought it back to neutral as quickly as I could.

I couldn't help but grimace.

I was slow enough that I was seriously going to have to stand here and practice bringing the weight back around. I brought the weapon back into neutral and swung it again.

I practiced two different cross slashes until my arms burned. I had sweat running down my brow as I tried to control the tool. The weight really was enormous. It had to be heavier than Cardin's Mace, even, and when I'd first arrived at Beacon I'd thought that thing was ridiculous.

When I brought that up to Ruby she just scoffed. She just reminded me that the weapon was still shorter and lighter than many such swords that I'd seen huntsmen smaller than myself use.

I rested against it and wiped my forehead. I'd need a drink if I kept this up. I groaned. I left my water in the tent. If I needed a drink, I'd have to gamble waking Ruby up.

_Not worth._

I brought the broadsword around, the shield clicked into place around my arm and I drew the longsword out. I felt the new weight and changed my grip along the very long handle. It was light and easy to control compared to the broadsword form. My burning wrist were more than enough to handle it. The shield was easy to swing and large enough to hit something fairly hard with. I crouched down as though avoiding gun fire and mimicked peaking around the shield and made several wide jabs with the sword.

My arms throbbed with the motion, but we can't all be winners and I was pretty determined to get a feel for the new weight.

Because people I like could die otherwise.

Pyrrha taught me a few forms to run through. Wide brutal swings followed by quick diagonal cuts before defensive posturing and foot-work. It didn't sound like much compared to a real fight or even a practice match. It also really wasn't. It was good cardio and weights, however, and it was familiarity with my weapon.

I mimed parrying with the tall shield before a thrust and two waist length sideways cuts with the sword.

Blocking with the shield was easy. Well easier than the small wrist movements required to block with the sword. Especially with the broadsword form, the last thing I wanted to do was commit to a block with any unnecessary movement. It was all in the wrists, small rotations that covered me just enough, or long enough for the shield to come around with the 'ittle bastard.

I panted for breath, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from my eyes again. I really needed a drink. I had no choice, really. I turned back towards camp.

_Maybe Ren left some water out?_

The thing about that was it something I would do. Ren was careful and smart besides.

I blinked when I got near my tent, though, the water was out in the cool night air. I glanced at the tent and listened for Ruby's soft breaths.

She was there alright. I picked the water up and took a drink.

_I must have brought it out with me._

I shrugged and carried back with me, kicking my way through the camp fire and cinders.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Birds flew, bees stung, and it hadn't taken Ruby long to examine the new and improved weapon. Less than a day, in fact.

Ren was making breakfast over the campfire, eggs, cheese, beans and rice in a burrito. Ren, of course, unanimously had last shift for this very reason.

They were perfect.

When she asked to take a look at Crocea Mors 2.0, I handed it over and let the burrito and Ruby do their business without my interference.

"Well it is heavy," Ruby murmured, it seemed like she was confessing some terrible sin and I had to restrain myself from chuckling at her. "At least heavier than it was before." It was true. It weighed as much as Crocea Mors had before with the shield, plus Miló and Akoúo̱ and Pyrrha's circlet and some of her armor. "Do you remember how to take apart and clean the mechanisms? I don't remember everything about it." Ruby admitted the last bit almost sheepishly. Like she was ashamed of having forgotten.

I choked on the precious food.

Ruby looked at me like I was being dramatic, but Nora mimed a heart attack and Ren reached out with the back of his hand like he was trying to take her temperature, so I felt not only justified, but moderate.

Ruby swatted his hand and turned her chin up at me.

"_You_ did what?" I asked grinning.

Nora pointed at Ruby aggressively. "She's an impostor."

I managed to swallow. "They're simple enough for me to understand so I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out again. I'll show you later tonight, when we make camp." I took another bite of burrito.

"We could also practice too, if you want," she offered.

I'd seen her fight and we'd occasionally sparred for Ms. Goodwitch at Beacon. She'd always tried to take it easy on me, she'd always won, though, super easily. She was faster than a sixteen-year-old had any right to be and swung her giant scythe around like it was nothing. She hit so hard so casually.

Her power made her spacing immaculate. She could rush her opponents down easily or escape to regroup at her leisure. She could totally control the pace of the battle, at least against me. She was a menace.

I nodded. "I'd be an idiot to say no."

"It's like some kind of fusion of swords now." Nora looked the weapon over with Ruby who was pantomiming swings with the broadsword.

_She's already better than me with it._

I finished my food and set about helping Ren pack up. Leaving the girls to chat while they cleaned up.

I rolled up my sleeping bag and the tent and packed them together. I took my sword back from Ruby, trading her for her backpack. Ren and Nora joined us with their things at the road and we were off again.

Ruby walked with the map out in front of her, stretched between both hands. "So, the next town is… Uh-huh! Uh-huh…" She gave up. "We're lost."

"We're not lost. The next town is Shion. My family used to visit all the time."

"Oh, yeah! Don't you have, like, four sisters."

"I have a few of those, yeah." I did my best to evade.

"Seven," Ren helpfully pointed out with a subtle smirk. Thank you, Ren.

_You fucking traitor._

Ruby just giggled beside me.

Nora had the sheer audacity to act like she was thinking, but I knew better. "Y'know, that actually explains a lot."

I had to let out an enormous sigh, I had no ammunition and no defense. "Yeah."

"So, what did you guys do there?"

I left the smirking Ren and Nora behind to step up next to Ruby. "Oh! All sorts of stuff!" I took the side of the map in one armored hand. "Over here is a great hiking trail, and over here is where we went camping all the time! I got my own tent because I was special."

Ruby waited patiently for me to finish, somewhere between exasperated and amused.

"Also, so my sisters would stop braiding my hair." I did.

"Didn't like the look?"

"Yeah, they just kept doing pigtails, but personally I think I'm more of a 'Warrior's Wolf Tail' kind of guy."

"Isn't that just a ponytail?"

"I'm not proud of a lot of things, Ruby." I bragged. "But I can rock any haircut?"

Ruby stifled a snort. "Really, any haircut? I think that I cou-"

"Uh, guys?" Nora intruded.

"What-"

"Huh?"

I doubted we'd be able to rent an airship here.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was thinking about Shion. I had to decide, and they were looking at me to do it right here and now. They hadn't asked yet, but they were thinking it. I could tell.

And not about Ren either, though his behavior was extremely erratic for what a Ren was.

_It wasn't like him, but Ren had never pushed me about anything, even when he'd been in the right to do so after initiation, so I can't bear to bother him before he's ready._

There was no communication. No one to let the village they had just left know that Shion was destroyed. Or the villages around that, for that matter, if they still existed.

"We have to head back then," Nora asked. "But it took us days to get here. Can we afford to do that?"

Ren shook his head. "This isn't about Lien. We have a moral imperative to let the area know about the destruction of this village. How they choose to handle it is their business."

"Wait, don't we need to let all the villages know," Ruby pondered. "And what about the bandits and Grimm! We're the best equipped deal with them!"

I stared hard at Ruby and when they finally all turned to look at me, I was still staring. I sighed.

_I don't even know if I can convince her to press on. Let alone if I should._

"We'll set up camp here and wait, if there are any survivors they'll have come out of hiding by then." I hesitated. "Ruby if you ran there and back how fast could you spread the word to Gailong about Shion's destruction?"

She hesitated. "I'm more for short distances than for long but uh…"

_She'd still be faster than anyone else._

"I'd really need to rest afterwards, but maybe a few hours."

Ruby was invaluable to their combat capabilities, if the bandits or Grimm struck again, we'd sorely miss her, even if we were able to win. The danger was everywhere not here, it seemed. Communication was just too slow.

I remember reading about what interstellar communication would have to be like and what old fashion communication was like. Experiencing it was miserable.

If Ruby got split up again from there, would I ever be able to find her?

_Also if I sent her off alone and she got hurt I'd-_

It must have shown on my face.

"I'll be fast and safe."

I was already shaking my head by the time she opened her mouth. It didn't matter what she said. From the moment she left until she got back, I would have no way of knowing if the bandits had been waiting for us to do something like that or were just in that direction in general.

She'd be spending aura the whole time on speed and this whole thing assumed that she wouldn't need to fight.

"Absolutely not," I snapped. "We're not splitting up."

"Jaune I can do it."

"You have to give me something beyond 'I'll be safe' and 'I can do it.'" I demanded. "Please."

Her teasing glare completely absent, it was replaced by something cold and metallic. She would bow to my plan on how to help, but she wasn't going to not help. It wasn't in her nature.

"Where will we camp?" Nora wondered. Her left hand was gently touching the fabric of Ren's sleeve. So small was the gesture that she barely manipulated the cloth.

"Here, in town."

"You think we should."

"Yes." I did. I couldn't bear the though of leaving survivors to die. Some child or infant could be tucked away and just waiting. "We'll do some searching through the rubble."

"Then what?" Ren demanded. "And if the Grimm and bandits come?"

"We have to destroy them." I affirmed. "We're the only ones who can possibly do so within any time frame that doesn't feel like leaving people to die." I waited for a beat for anyone of them to step in. "Then we're going back to GaiLong tomorrow; all of us," I insisted. "Together. from there we will search for the bandits and destroy them from GaiLong."

Ren briefly considered it. "I'll start searching, then." He paced away quickly, Nora bounced to catch up with him.

Peer to peer communication with scrolls was good enough that we'd be able to contact each other from within the village ruins so I let him go.

"Jaune..." Ruby began. I looked down at where she stood beside me. I think she expected me to walk away like Ren did and I surprised her because she didn't say anything else for an uncomfortably long time, or it seemed that way.

She managed to blurt out a, "thank you," at the same time I said, "let's start searching too," and it turned into an unintelligible mess.

"What?" I wondered.

She shook her head. "Let's go."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was eerie, camping in the town square. By their very nature as search and rescue operations don't try and hide at all, can't, even. It set my teeth on edge, but it was necessary.

"We'll be training a little too, but we'll try and keep it down." I let Ren know. He was scrapping some dinner together and some other meals. We'd found perishables that the bandits hadn't bothered to take and would literally rot if we didn't eat them.

Ruby had wondered if that made them better than the bandits but together the three of them convinced her otherwise.

From, "you can't give it to anyone."

To, "you can't save it for later."

And fervently, "all this in all these empty houses will be rat food if we don't eat it now."

She gave in but didn't eat much.

She was stressed, they all were. Especially considering how far we just got set back in terms of our travel time. Money really wasn't an issue. Huntsmen could make a living anywhere and with communication down…

With communication down the law of the land in most places was whatever the guy with the most fighting power said it was. Who were you going to call and how were you going to call them and what would they do by the time they finally arrived to do something, if they ever came at all?

Huntsmen will have even fewer problems making money anywhere. Perhaps too few.

I set another log on the campfire. There was a flare of sparks and the fire snapped a few times at me. I stared at them like the patterns they made would reveal something to me but there was nothing at all.

Nora was already turned away from the dim light in her sleeping bag. Ren being emotional had evidently exhausted her beyond her energy.

Ruby had found a clearing she liked as we'd set up camp and I followed her there now from the campsite. I hadn't bothered to take my armor off at any point. I needed to get used to it and I'd do it by wearing it sixteen hours a day, more, probably.

"You'll probably need a whole new fighting style, I mean, have you ever practiced with a broadsword?" She chatted as they walked.

"I haven't but a sword is a sword." What's so hard to understand about swish-swish-stab? A lot, to be honest. "I'll be able to figure it out."

"I know some of my uncle's moves." Ruby continued. "Would they help?"

"I'm bad enough that they literally couldn't make me worse."

She looked like she wanted to hit me for that but couldn't because she was about to hit me anyway.

I stared at her from the side, watching her lips move. She reached up while she was talking and brushed her short hair over her ear.

She was building up contained excitement like a diesel engine getting warmed up and I had to smile. Once she started talking it released like a wave and I found myself nodding and listening along as she carried on the better part of three conversations at once.

"A lot of his moves are horizontal, it's hard to swing a sword that big upwards. The ground gets in the way. His most powerful attacks are usually ones that come downwards, though, using gravity. His weapon is different, you know?" I did, I was confident she'd told me, at least. I'd hear it again, though. "It's a broadsword with a similar scale to yours but also turns into a scythe, and, unlike yours, it has a gun too." She looked at me to make sure I was listening.

"It's actually a lot more complicated than yours but you've always been simple."

I agreed so, I nodded.

"I don't mean simple like that. I mean simple like- well, you know."

I did, so I nodded.

"But every person is like that, everybody is unique."

"-what?"

"Weapon!" She corrected herself a tad-little loud. "Every weapon is like that." She glanced at me.

She dared me to call her out.

I couldn't possibly.

"I really don't know much about fight with shields, though, I'm sorry I won't be more help. But like I said, swing downwards instead of upwards and it'll help."

I grimaced. If I swung the broadsword down, I'd need to lift it up again. It seemed obvious but the thing was heavy now. I'd need to do it as little as possible to conserve energy.

I watched her spin away from me into the clearing.

It took me a second to realize she was waiting for me and I stepped opposite her and drew the broadsword from my back.

Ruby's scythe extended and she reversed her grip on it, holding the weapon behind her back. I didn't think for one second it was an opening. I couldn't cross the distance between us before she would move.

Still, I knew if she were willing to spend ammunition on a sparring match, I would be the one forced to approach. In the spirit of that, I charged at her anyway.

I committed to an attack with Crocea Mors, swinging from my shoulder down at her. She danced out of the way, her footwork was tight and fast. She was able to stay just out of my range, dipping in to slice across my breastplate with her scythe before I could bring my weapon around again.

It was enough to buffet it me and I was encouraged further to back up when she rolled the sycthe around her body in an upwards diagonal arc.

It wasn't where I wanted to be, backing up was so much worse than side stepping. On the back-foot your opponent could charge and stand and fight you.

Pyrrha had hammered that into me non-too gently. Sometimes she used her shield as the hammer.

Sometimes she hadn't.

Ruby stepped with me, staying inside where I would feel comfortable with the sword.

I lashed out with my foot in a clumsy kick, balancing the sword's weight with my own and all my armor on just one leg with little practice. The kick flat out missed and Ruby had the good grace not to laugh. She did catch the leg I was left standing on with her scythe and pull me off my feet.

I felt myself whirl through the air and land flat on my back.

"Sorry Jaune." She smiled down at me sheepishly.

I got to my feet shaking my head. "I'll get over it. I'm not afraid of looking like an idiot." I leveled the broadsword at her. "I still have plenty of aura for you to beat out of me."

She took that as a sign to continue and this time she rushed me.

I sidestepped lashing out with Crocea Mors into the space I had just occupied. It collided with Crescent Rose's barrel with a heavy metallic clank. The weight was enough to stop Ruby's momentum and she squealed as she strained against it and the noise she made was enough to distract me.

She retreated spinning the crescent behind her, before she reversed again, rotating once more towards me in whirlwind of red and steel.

"How are you not getting dizzy?"

She giggled at me for that like I was just being just so extra silly when I truly did want answers. It sometimes felt like I could barely stand up without my head spinning and here she was like a top.

I raised Crocea Mors and blocked the blade of Ruby's scythe with a grunt. I turned my wrists to block her next attack when she came around the other side.

I like to say my efforts stopped her but really she just hit me three times anyway.

Her blade swept across my stomach, glancing off my armor. I threw out Crocea Mors to try and gain some space, but she simply stepped back then back in and hit me hard in the side of the head with the back of Crescent Rose.

I stumbled back but she was all over me sweeping her blade towards me and chipping away at my aura. I grunted lowering Crocea Mors to defend once again. I blocked then thrust my blade out and swung it upward, Ruby easily dodged the thrust but wasn't ready for me to continue my assault. I rushed forward. She jumped, elegantly dodging the attack with her semblance.

She flowed to my right like water before she zipped to the left and seemed to hit me from behind as her scythe extended to a nearly impossible range. She threw me off balance, her scythe was a spinning blade of death that sunk deep into my aura, shredding away chunks of it. I stepped back like I was going to retreat but I whipped the blade out and I clipped her side.

She rolled with the attack to the ground to avoid me chasing her, but I had stopped.

The sword made meaty noise when it hit her, it was the first time I'd hit anybody or anything with it and I immediately regretted how hard I had swung it and that its first target was Ruby besides.

We were just training, and it wasn't like she was out here swinging to hurt me. I winced slightly. She looked a little winded. Her hand dropped down a little. I shouldn't just be throwing out haymakers at her.

_Duh, Jaune, what a way to say thank you._

Her body shimmered with soft red light as she recovered, getting to her feet. I let her rise unassailed; in a real fight I'd be all over her; I wasn't above hitting someone while they were down, after all, the world had no problems doing it to me, but this was just training.

"Are you alright." I asked, my eyes roved her body, looking for any sign of injury. Her hand rose from where I had hit her, and she nodded.

I was sure Ruby could go toe to toe with nearly anyone, I'd seen her fight Yang and Pyrrha. But my sword weighed as much as either of them did, soaking wet in full gear. And unlike a potential Yang based weapon, Crocea Mors had all of that force condensed into a tight blade.

Ruby's own weapon was spindly in comparison and for a moment I wasn't totally sure that I wouldn't crack her barrel in half if I came down really hard on it.

"I'm fine. That hurt, though, you've gotten stronger."

"It's the new sword, it's heavier," I dismissed. "It's easy to hit things hard with a giant sheet of metal."

"Well, I'm sure that's true, too."

I continued to look her over. I was thinking about her hit and run fighting style.

That old big kicker-why?

Why did she bother retreating when she was so strong? It wasn't just a fighting style preference. I was beginning to suspect that she needed to. She needed to dodge rather than block and she couldn't afford to tank hits like I could.

She wasn't _weak_ \- it was impossible to think that, really. It was honestly weird to think about her as fragile, too, even with the evidence right in my face.

"How am I doing so far," I managed between pants.

I decided I would give her a moment to catch her breath, if she needed it. It looked like I had knocked the wind out of her, even through her Aura.

"You need to move more, you stand too still." It was familiar advice, and it brought me back to rooftop training sessions with another redhead. I changed tracks, not wanting to think about Pyrrha right now.

Thinking about Pyrrha only made me want to train. I wanted to train and fight until I was strong enough to kill Cinder.

It was fucking bullshit that Cinder got to walk around while I didn't even get to bury Pyrrha. I shook my head, thoughts of revenge clearing. I had a long way to go until I could hold candle to the woman who killed my partner.

Besides I was training now, I couldn't be more training than I currently was.

"Well it's hard to keep up with you in terms of movement," I deflected but made it clear I agreed. Standing rooted like a tree would only serve to cost me precious aura. Plus, now I had two sources telling me to get my ass in gear and move around the battlefield. Not that I'd ever ignored Pyrrha's advice but sometimes lessons took a while to stick.

We started again.

I slashed two wide arcs at Ruby, and she ducked under one and deflected the other. The large sword wasn't cutting it for me right now, but the point was to train with the new form. My movements were telegraphed with the broadsword, much more so than with the bastard sword and the shield would also allow me to defend myself from her wild slashes better, but the point of training right now was to learn how to use the new length to my advantage. It was not necessarily to use the best weapon for the situation.

She hit me twice with Crescent Rose before I felt the blade swing around me. She traded places with it, swinging me and herself in a sort of orbit connected by her weapon. She brought me around in a wide arc before she used a tree to halt her moment and mine. I could only watch as Ruby effectively pulled the blade towards her and through my aura.

It clotheslined me hard into the ground and made a loud gonging noise as it her blade dinged off my freshly polished armor. I lay there on the ground with my chest flashed with soft golden light as my aura flickered. Ruby seemed to realize that I'd had enough and stepped back, folding her scythe behind her back as she did.

I tried to rub my chest through my armor for a moment before managing to puzzle together that it wasn't helping. Even through the protection granted by my soul and armor it was enough to sting.

I sat up and just tried to focus on breathing.

Ruby sat down next to me. Plopping down in her skirt with practiced ease.

"Was it really okay to re-forge Pyrrha's weapons like that?" Ruby asked. "I know I sort of talked you into this. I didn't mean to make you do something you might regret."

I understood the sentiment immediately, but this felt right.

"Her sword was in pieces and it would only have served as a reminder that she wasn't actually invincible," I began. It wasn't like I hadn't thought about it. "And I'm sure that she would be fine with me using her shield to defend myself, too. And you know there's going to be something satisfying about killing Cinder with a weapon reinforced with the one she broke." I chuckled lightly at the thought.

"Well, I guess it's okay, then?" She struggled to find something to say after that. "I'm sure you're right."

They sat quietly together in the forest lit by moonlight. It wasn't a full moon, like the night before, but still plenty bright.

"Jaune…" She trailed off.

"Yeah?" I answered anyway, ignoring her hesitation.

"About Pyrrha…" She pressed on.

"What about her?" I could talk about her, with Ruby of all people, at least. I didn't particularly want to, but I would.

"Did you and her ever…"

"No, we didn't. I didn't know until it was too late."

"Oh."

I realized my fingers were brushing my lips. The rough material of my gauntlets was nothing like Pyrrha's lips and my fingers tasted like sweat and grime.

_So soft._

I remembered the way she'd kissed me before she left. It had been desperate but with a certain finality. She'd known she was sending her valedictions to me at the time.

I'd known too.

"She was a really good friend."

"The best." I agreed readily. I wasn't sure where she was going with this.

"Would you have?" She grimaced looking pained. "Sorry."

"I don't know. Alright? I really have no idea. I don't get to know."

"You're right. I'm sorry." Ruby slipped into silence and I watched her fight herself again for a long minute. "But she wouldn't want you fighting Cinder."

"Well of course not." Hell, the last thing she'd done was push me into a locker and not give me the choice of dying with her. Which I wasn't bitter about at all. "But that doesn't change how I feel. So, I'm still going to."

"But…" She trailed. Her concern was like a fire, it flickered out towards me but it there was nothing for it to catch onto.

"Hey look." I pulled his sword over to where they sat. "You wanted to see how the mechanism works, right?" Anything for a change in subject, literally anything. It was weak but Ruby seemed to understand.

She just nodded and listened while I went over the weapon with her. I could tell that she remembered how the mechanism worked part of the way through his explanation, she'd helped design it, after all. She just needed the refresher, but that was it.

I explained all of it anyway.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**This is exactly how Jaune talks in my head.**

**-WG**


	2. I Let You Die II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

GaiLong was comfortable after sleeping in Shion. Sure, sleeping in some hundred-year-old ghost town was eerie, but not as eerie as seeing all the newly stray cats and dogs with collars who managed to survive and try and put their lives together the morning after everyone died.

Yes, we did cut the collars off every single one we saw.

We were welcomed back, too. I had been worried a little about how we would be received with the news, but it seemed to be nothing but paranoia on my end. The village leader, Lai Beihfing was more than willing to sit down and work with us, though. He had seemed content to think that our alibi of staying with them for the past few weeks was enough evidence to be assured we weren't in on some conspiracy.

He sent out riders by horseback to the surrounding villages, but he quickly monopolized my time. I wanted to leave to hunt the bandits, too, but…

"Surely you'll agree that if all of you leave, we would be just as defenseless as Shion would."

"If we encounter the enemy or whatever Grimm left that print, I need all hands-on deck," I disagreed. Maybe I was paranoid, but if Beihfing-Tono didn't believe us entirely, then having half as many of us here would also decrease our effectiveness if we tried some trojan horse-shit.

"You said you would have fled if the beast returned to Shion." He returned. "Doesn't that imply your strategy was to retreat from it anyways?"

"Only if I thought I couldn't beat it, which I definitely can't with half my team." I returned. "If half of us die then we definitely can't kill it and there are also the bandits."

"Who could then attack while you are gone. We couldn't possibly fight them off without your help and without the presence of at least some of you, I am worried that the news may cause a panic." The nail in the coffin, for me, really, "and we should not assume my riders will return with good news either."

It was a win-win for him and his village, and it wasn't a gamble he could afford to lose, whether I was telling the truth or not, he needed some of us here, preferably more than one of us. It wasn't one I could afford to either. "Arc-san please. You must see reason."

"I-" I sighed and shook my head, "I didn't disagree with you from the start, sir."

The Beihjing-Tono, reclined slightly and looked beyond and behind me. "Please, won't you give us the room?" His own guards nodded and gestured for my friends to file towards the door. "You three are more than welcome to return to the Inn." Ruby hesitated and though she did lift her hand from my shoulder.

It was sort of implied that he would pay for our room and board while we hunted, his enemies, especially now that I had my weapon. Not just to pay us but also… well… if the bandits could kill them all, so could we. Plus, if we were telling the truth we could just leave, and they would be fucked.

It worked both ways, though, the timing of me getting my weapon, communications going down, and Shion's destruction was all super suspicious on our end, too.

The fact was we both sort of had each other by the balls and neither of us really wanted to do any more squeezing than was necessary.

I turned and nodded to Ruby, "it won't take us long. We just need to work out the details."

She nodded, but I knew she wouldn't let it go. She'd want those details later.

Well, I figured she'd probably want details on other stuff she wasn't pushing super hard on now either, but it was really time to stop thinking about her as she was walking away from me.

I pretended like I made myself focus and it wasn't when she shut the door. I was the boss. The boss, the boss, the boss, the boss.

When I turned around it was to the sight of GaiLong's principle face pouring two cups of tea. He offered one to me even as he poured it and it struck me how tired he looked.

Panic, bandits, Grimm, and no communication with Vale, Atlas, or Mistral, further, Beihjing-Tono wasn't exactly having a good day either. The village had no back up military-wise and no capital I could even take with me, let alone valuable enough to me that would really be worth risking their lives.

He probably had friends in Shion, too.

And he was now going to have to rely on the fact I wasn't a total scum bag or people would die in his streets.

It probably hadn't been like this in almost a century, since the towers went up. It seemed nearly as far away ago as the construction of the first pyramids, since feudalistic Mistral. Not so long that the system had collapsed, entirely.

"You agree you have to leave half yourselves here."

"Yes." I took a long drink. "But I do think I need every one of them to kill it. Maybe some of your men, too. I don't know how to kill it, I haven't seen it yet, but it looks very big and possibly intelligent." I hesitated. "It might be old, too."

"We should prepare, the Grimm will come here first, no?" It was true. It doesn't matter how tightlipped you think your men are this place is too small. They'll talk to their wives and children and more. "We must assume we are the first to know and thus, the most likely to experience the greatest change in happiness over the next few days. If it was as close to Shion and as you say, it will feel us. Do you agree master huntsman?"

"We'll have to wait a few days at least," I agreed. "My friend's semblance lets him suppress an area from their senses, its better with fewer people but with such a small village it should help. It'll help people stay calm, too."

"What will you do then?"

"That depends entirely on what news your men bring back, doesn't it?" I asked. "What should we do if your men bring back news that Shion wasn't the only place destroyed?"

"We shall discuss that if and only if it comes up." He'd been a little relaxed before but to my eyes he grew more cautious of me. "Arc-San, I am sure the destruction you experienced at Beacon was traumatizing but if a Grimm with such might had been in the area for years and destroyed villages with such ease, I would know it. After the first few days the bandits shall be the greatest threat. Once you eliminate them the danger will pass, and you can return to your journey."

I bit my tongue. He didn't want me here any longer than I had to be. Didn't trust me enough, maybe. He thought I was in with the bandits, it would be a reasonable way to try and consolidate power in the area. I just had to invent some imaginary threat that only I could stop, and I needed all the villages around to give me whatever I wanted to do it.

I hesitated, I wanted him to strongly consider it now. I wanted to have a plan in case the villages around were destroyed too but…

"I strongly encourage you to reconsider." I pleaded.

"I am not evacuating, I cannot consider it and you cannot pretend to be able to protect us no matter where we go."

What? Did he think I was an idiot?

"I… I never was considering evacuating…" There was another plan too, an obvious one. "Sir, I have another idea, one I'm not sure anyone else needs to know about." I watched him set his tea down, slowly. "I'm assuming that you don't have a prison, even if we do catch the bandits…"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

So, I realize that what I was about to do may as well be murder if I pulled it off. Yeah, I was still calling it outlaw justice with a thousand justifications if anyone called me on it but wasn't that sort of the plan with Cinder and her shmucks anyways?

It was complicated but calling something 'outlaw-justice' when I was contemplating how to kill people seemed really hollow. Maybe it is the right thing to do. I'm even convinced it is, but I am even more convinced that not everyone will see it that way.

The Grimm needed to be drawn away and any of the bandits who had aura could not be allowed to escape and kill again.

I'm no mathematician but I see some ways I could cancel things out.

I glanced across my team's faces and I reasonably guessed who I could sell what when.

"We're staying for a few days." I met Ren's eyes and started nodding. "We're making everybody feel calm and going on patrols. Spending some time here. I have our board from the mayor and we're just waiting for the riders to come back."

"Should we start now?" I nodded. We'd talked about it along the way. We already planned to do 'patrols,' i.e. find dinner, in town and be seen. However, Ren could just calm down everybody he passed through walls and over fences and the combination of the two should help. He couldn't do everyone, well, not at once, he could do something like ten to fifteen meters depending so there wasn't anywhere in town that he couldn't reach and calm down.

He rose with Nora to set about.

Then it was Ruby and I.

Which also led to the problem of how I'd sell Ruby leaving the bandits to die somewhere.

Nora I could trick, Ren I could convince but I'd need to somehow evade Ruby to get it done. Outlaw justice wasn't going to fly with her. It just wasn't. If I tried to launch it, she'd shoot it down and then maybe, she'd shoot me too.

Bam, bam.

I had to go because who else would kill them, and Ren probably had to stay here, and the implicit understanding so far had been any splitting-up would be done partner-wise. Changing that now would be suspicious.

Well. I could and would have to change that over the next few days or find something else. I really was looking. It wasn't like I had my heart set on lying to Ruby per se. Or even on killing the bandits or Cind-well, let's not get crazy.

The bandits, though, I was open to ideas.

I still thought the mayor was wrong about the Grimm, too. How could he sleep at night with such a creature right next door? I suppose the same way he had the night before.

"So how did it really go?"

I sighed. Feeling her arms barely above my waist. "Pretty much like that. We have some other plans, but we need to know more."

"Like what type of Grimm, it is?" Ruby hesitated. "It's a Nuckelavee."

I blinked. "Wh-What else can you tell me about it?" I whipped around. "Ruby what the fu-"

"I didn't know either, alright!" She snapped right back her hand somehow stung through all my armor despite that she was in her PJs.

They were the same as the old ones and they didn't fit well, anymore. She was taller and her legs were longer than they had been. She also just didn't have the frame she used to.

I was trying hard not look at her, in the dark it was one thing, but…

"Alright, alright, alright, alright." I pleaded. "I'm sorry." I turned and sat on the bed, frustrated, but that was really no excuse at all. What was I? A barbarian? I spat out a long breathe. "Please, where and how?"

"Nora told me; what it was called, I mean. She told me that Ren told her once, but that she doesn't know any more. Ren does, though. He didn't tell you, then?"

She threw out her arms and paced about the low-lit room. There was enough room to pace from the small sofa, to the small bathroom. Just enough for her to get all the pacing she needed done. I'd maybe watched once or twice.

They'd given us two rooms again, which was nice of them. They were low, but they were warm, and their walls were built as inexpensive as possible from the dark woods around them. I mean they had other wall stuff done to them, too.

I wasn't I wall guy and I had better things to think about when she turned around, walked over, and handed me a cardboard box that had the logo, warmth, and weight of restaurant food. "Ren ordered it for you, said you probably wouldn't mind anything so… We can get something else if you don't like it. I'm sure it'll get eaten."

It was a large sandwitch with fries. I was pretty sure about its ultimate fate as well.

"I'll uh, thanks." I stuttered off.

She turned and sat on the bed next to me with a plop as I tucked in. "Sorry, we didn't wait for you, but we sort of figured."

I nodded.

"Nora was talking to me about it earlier, she said Ren's been quiet, not sure how she can really tell."

"He has." I agreed. Why didn't he tell me about the Grimm?

"You can tell too? Is it just me? Ugh." She flopped backwards. Her exposed stomach was- well-exposed. As in I could see it. I was trying to stop, too, but it really wasn't working well. She had abdominal outlines around her navel and the way her sides ran down to her pants was just-

"-you know?"

I moved the box across my lap and chewed hard.

"-Jaune?" She sat up. "You looked like you were thinking hard." Incorrect, Rubes. "You figure something out?"

"Huh?"

"About Ren."

"Ren?" I wondered. "Oh yeah. Yeah, I'll talk to him later."

"You think he'll talk to you?" She raised an eyebrow. "When he's not talking to Nora? You have absolutely lost your mind."

"Maybe."

I had an angle, I wasn't really even sure what it was yet but maybe if Ren wasn't his usual self…

"Hey."

"Huh."

"Don't you want to change?"

I was still in the clothes I'd marched all day in, not to mention armor, by necessity I'd had to leave the sword by the door. It was one of those two meter-and-change sword things. I eyed it now. "I was going to go practice some."

"Nope."

"Nope?" I asked. I couldn't help the smile that ran across my face.

"Nope."

"Why nope, now?"

"Because you were up late last night doing it, and up early this morning doing it, and you did the same thing the day before. And don't think we haven't noticed you not even trying to sleep during Ren's shift. We have. We've noticed a lot."

"Who is we."

"Uh, the rest of us."

"You guys talking about me in here?"

"Well duh, what else would we talk about."

I laughed. "Well it would be pretty arrogant of me to-"

"We're worried about you." She glared, her eyes glimmered at me even as she rolled over so I couldn't see her face. "You butt."

"Ruby-"

"You haven't been the same since Beacon. You're just… it's like Ren, now, but all the time and every time someone tries to talk to you keep them out." I watched her pull the covers around her even tighter. "Even me."

Her red face peaked out and I met her wet eyes. I took the deepest breath I thought I could manage. "Ruby you're being unfair."

She lost the battle against her angry tears and the first one fell. It was closely followed by the second. She wiped them away with the sheets of the bed with a fervor that left a red streak across her face.

"I don't mean with-like-Pyrrha." I managed. She must have gotten the sense that I really was trying because her angry tears stopped for a moment and she just stared at me. "Come on. I was never going to be the same again. You haven't been, either, since you saw her die."

"I told you I hardly even remember what happened at the top of-"

"I know." I pleaded. "I meant Penny."

She looked away again, but I reached out and grabbed her hand. "I was never going to be like I was before Pyrrha died. How could I go back?" The headmaster's machine beneath the school and the scarred girl in the pod were burned into my mind forever. Nothing could be the same again.

"Well… you know you can talk to me about it." She crawled across the bed and wrapped her arms around my neck. My stomach was too tight for me to eat anything, so I set my food on the nightstand between the two beds. I could smell, well, her. I couldn't pin the scent down besides 'rose' in a lot of unhelpful ways. It was clean, though, and gentle. Maybe a bit like cinnamon and sugar.

"I'm trying." I continued. "It's really hard. I didn't get to sort out what I felt for her, if anything. And her feelings really just..." I shook my head. "God, listen to me complain like I was the one who fucking died."

"You're allowed to feel things you know."

"I really don't know what I feel, though."

"What about me?" Her voice came quietly into my ear and I simultaneously relaxed and tensed in her arms. She seemed ready for it. She always seemed to be able to do that with people. Tonight, wasn't the first time she seemed to know what I was feeling before I did.

I felt like laughing. "I feel guilty just looking at you."

Is that all? She didn't say it. She just rubbed her hands across my chest for a long moment. She knew it wasn't though. Too many late-night talks between shifts and time on the road. Too much before that, too. In a lot of ways. "Jaune things will never be convenient but I..." I turned my head and suddenly we were centimeters away. "I want to help you move on."

"I never started anything with her. Never got to." I wondered.

"Jaune you don't treat me like her." She insisted. "You're not replacing her with me."

My voice was tight. "It feels like it, sometimes." I rubbed my face hard with one hand. "Ruby I-" I tried to tell her. I looked into her eyes and saw how emotional she was. I wondered if I could feel even a tenth of it.

"If you feel like you're replacing me with her you can talk to me about that, too."

She brought my head forward in the cradle of her arms and kissed me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	3. I let You Die III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was by the very nature of his style that sparring against Ren was at times dreadful but mostly he was truly the best partner for opening me up. He stormed me with bullets until I was forced to chase him. Shielding was a losing battle and if I let him get inside my guard and step into my range then it wouldn't matter which form Crocea Mors was in. I would eat some damage and probably get knocked on my ass regardless.

It was an arduous battle between not letting him escape and not letting him open up my defenses. His bullets were seriously a pain.

I stepped up to him slowly, I placed my footwork wide and careful. I was wary of him rapidly approaching while trying to prevent him from just turning and pacing back. I held Crocea Mors in its larger form all the way across my body to shield myself from gunfire. I stared through one of the gaps in the weapon where the shield plates sealed over the smaller sword.

He jumped back defensively, and I leapt forward, I swept the sword at him, but he pushed it down with both hands. Had it been a trick all along? He reached out across my blade and tried to slash at me, to grapple me and force me into a melee where I would be at an enormous disadvantage.

I would have to abandon my sword and wrestle him and his daggers. The two times he'd managed it early had been where I'd lost seventy percent of the aura I had lost to our entire match. Both timers I'd had to tap out, too.

He had mounted me and pinned me down and it became clear I had lost.

He was too fast for me to escape from entirely and I suffered from a series of jabs as I backed off and tried to make space. I stepped back hard like I was going to sprint back, and I whipped around and lashed him hard across the chest with the single edge in what was rapidly becoming a personal favorite.

I choked down on the handle as I did, like I was cutting fire-wood with an axe. The handle was something like fifty centimeters long in and of itself. This led up to a few inches of thick and blocky guard before becoming a wide six-foot blade. End to end it was taller than me. In fact, it only fit on my back so comfortably due to the angle the straps held it at.

Even as my hands slid down to the pommel, I threw my hips into the swing as hard as I could. Turning my body and trying to inflict as much momentum as I felt his aura compress as the blade struck him and picked him up. He rolled with it, the weapon, almost as heavy as him, nearly sending him sprawling. I sprinted after him, trying to catch him again before he could regain his footing. I leapt and cast Crocea Mors in a tight arc after him. He simply rolled to the side and back to his feet.

He pantomimed shooting at me, and I was forced to take cover again, breaking off my assault.

I rolled my left wrist out and pulled slightly on the sleeve with my right thumb, my scroll's screen flared to life against my gauntlet.

Ren's aura dragged down with the bar. It was yellow-ish. I carefully noted my own off to the side and, with Ruby and Nora's scrolls all synced to mine, it showed theirs as green, too.

My own was a still a bit greener but if I'd been being shot the whole time and he'd been actually using his guns to combo me around things would have been different.

The scroll was an incredibly powerful tool. These weren't the usual scroll things most civilian models used, ours were incredibly developmental. They'd been made by Vale in co-operation with the Atlesian Military. Besides the usual features such mobile devices usually had, the small holographic screens had no glass to be shattered. Instead they existed solely between the magnetically suspended 'C' shaped contacts which made up the device.

The next major feature was the combination the scrolls had with a small implant in our bodies. It was in our forearms, implanted after orientation with a needle and not even requiring anesthesia.

Normally both devices required an external power supply to recharge, but these scrolls were designed to operate off the user's Aura. Now this may seem flawed, given that the lack of aura may leave a scroll powerless, but they were also powered by a small chip of yellow dust crystal. The half-life and energy were not lethal on human lifespans but radiated enough power to supply the device for an incredibly long time.

The implants in our bodies synced to the scrolls and the biometric data was incredibly useful in the field. I could watch my team's aura from kilometers away, potentially, I could even watch them die through it.

I didn't have to imagine it very hard.

"You good?" I asked. I realized how I could be misinterpreted. "I mean you ready to hit the showers?"

He lowered the guns and breathed hard. "After our patrol."

"Right." The town was calm. Not like calm-before-the-storm kind of calm but it seemed like a genuinely relaxed atmosphere. Some children had even come up to me and asked to see my sword and scroll and even take a look at my armor.

Ren did some slight-of-hand stuff with his weapons for them like a parlor trick.

It was on this patrol that I found my chance to talk to Ren. Aka, grocery shopping. Ren was typically quiet if he was moving and using his semblance. It came with the focus and with the Lie Ren-ness.

Thus, I was a little surprised when he started talking. "Jaune, I wanted to apologize. I knew the nature of the Grimm we encountered, and I didn't share it."

I breathed in and out, I relaxed and tried to look at it through a rose-tinted lens. "Did Nora talk you into apologizing?"

His eyes widened as we walked through the village square, a small garden and large courtyard adorned by local stalls and shops.

"She did. How did you know?"

"There's a bit of that going around." I murmured. "You're telling me, though, right?"

He nodded. "It's a chimera but anthropoid, it has a horse-body with a human-like rider. It's smart and I-" he hesitated. "I think that it's the same one that destroyed the village that Nora and I came from."

I nodded along. "So, it's old, then." I still wasn't going to push him on it. It sounded like Nora had things under control.

Between her and Ruby I was starting to wonder who the leader of JNRR actually was. It would probably be best to assume things were RNJR until any evidence at all otherwise emerged.

He nodded he seemed relieved with it too. "When it fought in the village all evidence showed that it was already extremely old. It's large too, and faster than one might expect. Its main weapon is its reach and claws." He explained the monster's strengths and weaknesses. "It prefers to not allow its enemies to get close and then it relies on size and armor and a healing factor to over-come projectiles."

I grimaced. It sounded pretty bad, but it could always be worse so… "It's not like – an adaptive-regenerator, is it?"

I'd heard of such creatures before. Things that couldn't be hurt the same way twice and were almost impossible to kill. These things tended to die early or not at all so if one had been here in the area for say-I didn't need thirty to make my point, so let's say, twenty years, and it had been killing huntsmen on my level, then I probably wasn't going to even be able to bother it.

"No." I breathed a sigh of relief. "But it's hard to fool in the first place. It'll be wary of traps."

I suspected as much. I was too, but my nature would force me into some of them if they were set right. They just would. It was a Grimm and it would fall into an appropriate trap, in an appropriate location, at an appropriate time. "You know the geography around here, then?"

We'd need to find its lair. It would have one, perhaps even multiple. It was hard to make assumptions with an intelligence as alien as a Grimm but if it resided in the area for a long time, it would have places it tended to stay between ambushing travelers and destroying the occasional town when it saw the chance.

Later the two of us poured over a map, noting the destroyed villages in the area from a local archive at our request. We predicted possible locations for it and the bandits. We could hardly survey the area in an instant, so we'd need to search conventionally. That meant walking or riding everywhere. For someone who had stylized themselves a little knightly, I wasn't keen about riding a horse.

That was if unawakened horses like those around here could even carry me. All my armor and weapons together weighed in the ball-park of two hundred pounds, and I was six-foot of nearly two hundred pounds myself.

That was excluding the tent and all my other gear.

Plus searching like this might mean missing them if they rotated, too.

A Grimm like this would pursue its enemies through its territory, destroying any it believed it could so long as it could detect them. No, that wasn't quite right, it crushed any spiders it saw sprinting across the floor of its house.

Ren noted tracks from Shion, though, so with luck, we would be able to follow one or either so long as it didn't rain particularly hard until then. We would then have to choose between following the bandits and following the Nuckelavee.

It was here that the restrictions on the number of us out in the field began to chaff. If partners were out, we could find one and the other at the same time, but like this we needed to select one or the other.

"If we find the bandits, we can use them to lure the Grimm out of hiding." I voiced my reasoning to Ren with my plan. "We find them, we find both, we use them both to destroy them both."

Ren's praise sounded honest. "Perhaps the answers were before us all along."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Things were worse than I thought and hoped, and I was suddenly rather regretful that I'd hadn't forced Lord Beihfing to prepare for the worst.

It wasn't the worst. Not all the villages near here had been destroyed. However, Shion hadn't been the only place the GaiLong riders had confirmed were now rubble. Two other places with a couple thousand people between them were gone, along with some smaller hamlets.

It was inevitable that with the destruction of Beacon tower, smaller, more isolated places across the world could no longer exist. A small percent of the entire world population, nearly everyone living in groups of less than a hundred, had died or become refugees.

Sure, places closer to larger ones would still be around, but a small farm in the middle of nowhere with the panic of communication not coming back was simply gone.

This would be true everywhere all over the world. Different cultures would handle it differently. It was unlikely nomadic peoples would be influenced much. Such peoples did exist and whether they were bandits or much older tribes in Mantel or Vacuo, and they would notice few changes.

Small hamlets that had only been possible with the Towers in place had crumbled with it gone. Communication systems increased our carrying capacity, so intuitively without those systems our carrying capacity diminished.

Soldiers couldn't get where they needed to, neither could hunters, so people died.

I figured if I said 'bummer' and nothing else it probably wouldn't go over well. I had seen this coming evidently so now I had to have a plan. Its pretty bad for morale if the general walks out of their tent and says to the first guy they see, 'hey, I have no idea how we're getting out of this one.'

It wouldn't be that bad, but it would be close. "Nothing's changed."

Lord Beihfing's men just eyed me while the man in question didn't even look at me. "I need my friend to make rotations to all the surrounding villages, not just here. This place has the best defenses and we recently cleared the area."

No one else said anything. Uninterrupted, I marched on. "We'll have to take some of your horses." I was asking but I wasn't really asking. "Just two for my friend and his partner. They'll spend a few days in all the places with more than a thousand people."

That was only three other places besides here now in the entire valley. Not to sound like an asshole, but they'd be back within a fortnight, which wasn't bad for what things were now. Especially if they took their time.

"The other two of us will go after the bandits. Shion was the latest so we will continue there."

"When would you leave?"

"Tomorrow morning, fairly early."

There was a long beat of silence in the log cabin, the fire place was empty in the warm summer and normally the building would have its doors and windows flung open to allow a breeze. Now with nearly almost a dozen men and women in the room it was more than a little hot.

But they needed their 'secrecy.'

"We will prepare your horses and your rations." The old man really didn't have much choice. He flicked his hand and several of his men left with respectful bows. "When should we expect you back?"

I met Ren's eyes. "Two weeks at the latest." He gave me a slow measured nod back. He knew the plan. Trap the bandits and make them scared. Make them desperate. "If none of us are back in a month and you've received no messages from us you must assume the worst."

"What shall I do then?"

I laughed a little. "No offense, but I suppose it wouldn't be my problem, then." I shook my head. "One of us will be back. Honestly, we probably won't catch anything with this first net." The last thing I wanted to run was a multi-month-multi-township campaign across the entire valley. "There's been no Grimm and the place has been calm. Your riders all made it back, too. The bandits have all the food and plunder they can slowly sell to the villages around here for a long time. There's no reason to risk attack when they're all fed."

None of that really added up on true inspection. But I joked about my death lightly then calmly reassured them about something. That was my game plan.

None of this did. The timing was fast. Alarmingly so. Why destroy so many villages so quickly? It could hardly be for food or money.

All the riders made it back, too. A single rider like that? That was the easiest and the most tempting target for information.

Traitors? Maybe?

I really wanted to give each village hierarchy a surprise stress test, but I wasn't sure how I could do that without, you know, destroying them. Vibe check.

The communication here was a nightmare, even if Ren killed the bandits or any one of the gambles I was going for paid off then we still had problems. Maybe I'd consider a place that had fucking trains or something. Traditional wires, too, maybe.

Anything faster than this because I also wanted to make sure the bandits weren't just waiting for us to leave GaiLong. Lurking just long enough for us to split up and murder once again.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I struggled to consider what I was doing right now my first date. Especially with the context that recollections of some of Pyrrha's and I's 'outings' provided.

_Fuck._

Not dwelling on that.

By any other measure, a stroll through some town market with a guy and a girl who were now a thing was a date, right? Even though it was a patrol and we did basically the same thing yesterday, now it was different. Now we were 'together.'

Ruby didn't seem to mind at all, though, she flowed from place to place with her typical energy. It was as though she'd never been through these streets and past these stalls. She could just walk up to some person and talk to them.

I… I really liked that about her.

_Fuck._

She called me over from some RV that seemed to a be a permanent feature in the square. Some short-term-long-term food-truck-restaurant? I wasn't sure, but when she spun and called to me with a wave, I felt my jaw and was struck by the realization that I wasn't sure just how long I'd been holding my teeth clenched together.

My face ached but she made me smile anyways as I paced over to her.

She smiled right up at me and I had to look away. I really wasn't sure how I was even supposed to look at her. I almost meant that literally. Could I just, like, look at her now? Whenever I wanted?

I was trying not to be stressed about her of all things right now, still, though…

"What's up?"

"They're moving people in from around the area." She explained. I cocked my head. Beihfing and I had both been united about a panic. "They started a few weeks ago. I guess after the tower fell, a lot of people moved to bigger places, weird."

Oh, maybe they hadn't all died. Huh. "Its not that weird," I disagreed, I eyed the woman Ruby had been talking to. She was twenty-five-thirty with blonde hair which made her stand out a little here, but her skin tone made her a match for some of the locals in terms of origin. "You had to run?"

"Well we couldn't order dust or anything and it was pretty scary being mostly along." She shrugged, her casual ease with her emotions struck me. I was a total fucking stranger. Well, I was also a huntsman so, I didn't analyze it and just nodded. "It was a good thing too, what with the other villages."

I figured it was an open secret in the village, but I wasn't sure. The kind of news would travel fast until everybody knew it at which point, why bother pretending? It was common knowledge.

"What'd you need." I asked the two.

It was Ruby who lured me in. "They wanted to pull the motor and alternator out of it and use it as a winch for other stuff. They've already pulled out all the bolts, but they don't well, if they already had a winch then they wouldn't do this.

"So?"

She rolled her eyes, "so nobody but you can lift it."

The woman looked down at Ruby. "I'm telling you it weighs, like, four hundred pounds, easy." I walked around and looked down into the hood. It was some dust-based thing with Atlas stamps, all smooth edges. It wasn't designed to be repurposed. It was designed, perhaps, to not be able to be repurposed. Some technology was like that.

I reached down with one hand and, with a heave and a grunt, I lifted it and set it down. Ruby absolutely could have lifted it.

The woman blinked at me. "Oh uh." Her eyes flicked to Ruby and back to me. "Could you set it over here? Then? If it's not too much trouble?"

"Uh, no." I returned.

She glanced at Ruby again. "No?"

"No, it's not any trouble." I clarified or tried to. "I didn't mean… Not no…" I sighed. "Where do you want it?"

Ruby was laughing at me. I could see it as I passed her, following the woman to some cinderblocks. Our reward some something which I was assured was not ice-cream but _was _some kind of frozen custard-yogurt-stuff with sugar in it.

To me it was ice-cream and it was good, for the time that I had it, that is. When we returned to the inn I still hadn't showered after Ren and I trained that morning. Then I made the mistake of entrusting my teat to Ruby who had already nearly finished hers.

When I got out of the shower there were only few bites left. "Ruby-"

"I left you some!" She pouted at me. I watched her take the last bite of hers from where she sat on her bed and set it daintily on the nightstand. Then she looked up and her smile never changed but she leaned forward onto her hands and stared at me.

I abruptly felt like covering myself, the towel and shorts I had on still showed off most of what I looked like. "Are you just going to stare at me?"

She blinked like I was alien. "Yeah." Fair enough. I started putting on clothes anyways as she rolled around the bed. "I mean you stare at me, too, right."

I did. I had more than usual today, too, I didn't want to hide what I felt from her.

She continued, though. "I mean maybe not. Maybe, you like to look at girls like Sahov more?"

"Who?" I wondered.

She tossed a pillow to my face. "The girl we were just talking to!"

"Um…" I trailed off.

She slumped down into the covers. "Forget it."

"Ruby," I started. I pulled a shirt over my head and began walking over to the bed.

"I said forget it!"

I sat down. "Rubes you know you're incredibly good looking right?"

"What?" She sat up from under the covers. "Yang's the pretty one, I'm the cute one."

"Ruby if I didn't know you and you came up to me on the street and started talking to me, I would assume I was being pranked somehow."

"Ugh." She let me know her disgust, but she wasn't under the covers anymore and she was giving me this much sort of… sly smile.

I'd never seen that one before and it wasn't something I usually associated with her. She crawled onto my lap and turned to face me, burring herself in the crook of my neck. I hesitated for a moment but let my arms rest around her slightly.

"You really don't think I'm cute." She blushed. "I mean…"

"Oh yeah I just can't stand to look at you," I kissed her. Her bottom lip fit between my two and my ego was fed when I felt her relax in my arms. I chuckled as I pulled away.

She hit me as red as I'd ever seem her. "Butt."

When I started laughing, she shut me down by kissing me again.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	4. I Let You Die IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Of course, we argued the whole way there about which we would follow once we arrived. "You just told me you think it's the second most dangerous Grimm you've ever seen." Her eyes narrowed at me and her nose did too, and she leaned forward. Forward into her walk, not at me.

I watched her slowly speed up and pass me. "Now you want to go chase the bandits? You just told me that they won't kill again. That makes the Grimm the clear and present danger.

I didn't speed up to match her. That would trap me in a cycle. I had to wait here and stand my ground. For a certain definition for somebody walking, that is. Besides I couldn't really outpace her. She'd hopefully meet me in terms of pacing and more.

"Rationally." I clarified. "If they're behaving rationally that is."

"They're bandits." She got a little quieter, I stumbled over my own feet. She didn't turn around, but she probably heard it easily. "What's so rational about that?

"Not crime in general." I resumed my walk. "I meant what they want now. Theoretically they just used the Grimm as a weapon to destroy three places. They don't need food or water or money for a while and if they want anything from the ruins they can realistically go and get it."

"But the Grimm could kill now." She wasn't deterred. Maybe I wasn't explaining right.

"I know." I pleaded. She slowly fell into my rhythm again. Her pace coming to match mine beside me. "But they didn't need to destroy three."

That made her hesitate. "What?"

"I mean one is plenty, if they just wanted those things." I tried to explain. "If they were just looking to survive, then even destroying a single town seems excessive. In the past-before the kingdoms, I mean-awakened-horseback-archers riders viewed civilized groups as livestock."

"Where?" She wondered.

"Uh… everywhere I suppose. The steps of Western Vacuo and Equatorial Mistral, really, though. It's still the dominant lifestyle in some of those places."

"Pillaging?"

"No, well, maybe now." I tried. I knew she was getting frustrated. "But before they just milked horses because that was the only way to live."

She gave me a curious look, a small smile. "It was on a documentary I saw." I defended. "Anyways, that's not the point. Now we may see a return to those kinds of mind sets and lifestyles."

"But that's not happening here." She caught on. "They're doing something else?"

"Purposelessly killing people."

"There's never a good reason to kill somebody, Jaune." The steel was back.

"Please let's not get into that," I begged. "And using the Grimm to do it, maybe." I confirmed for her with a nod. She released a shaky breath and relaxed her shoulders.

"So, you want to go after them first? You think they're going to do it again?"

I nodded, glad she was seeing my perspective. "I think we should double back to GaiLong again. I want to make sure they haven't been watching us this whole time and waiting for us to leave." I explained, talking even faster.

Her mouth opened a little at me, eyes drifting up at me. "But the Grimm and the tracks… it'll just get worse if we wait any longer." She leaned in, "besides they can handle it right?"  
I was already shaking my head. "I don't trust all of the guards back there. If our enemy are just bandits, why did none of the riders get intercepted? None of this makes any sense."

"Jaune you can think yourself in circles if you worry about every minor thing. We have to trust that Beihfing has his situation under control." She worried her lip between two fingers, looking far away in thought.

I really wanted to kiss her…

"Do you know where the bandits or whatever are going to do now?"

"I don't know what they want." I blinked it away and refocused. Besides there would probably be time for that later, maybe. We were on the job but…

She was staring at me.

_Focus up, moron._

"If I did, I would tell you. I can only guess at their motivations."

Her face grew tight, "so you don't even know either, but we do know the Grimm." She was getting a flow to her now. "And they kill all the time. Besides you said they used it as a weapon, right?"

I wanted to get an edge in. "Ruby-"

"Right. So, once they can't do that anymore they'll have to do something else, we can find them then or…"

"Or let them go?" I wondered. "Ruby they're malevolent."

"So are the Grimm." She was unrelenting and didn't even look at me.

"Not with this kind of intent."

"At Beacon the Grimm were coordinated." Ruby pressed me more. "Even besides the ones the White Fang dropped. They moved together." When I didn't say anything, she looked over. "At Beacon when the Dragon showed up." She waited for me to figure it out. "They sort of shuddered in unison. You didn't see?"

What the fuck.

I told her as much.

She just nodded looking grossed out. "They have motive and focus. I know I sound crazy, but Cinder was talking to it. I heard her."

She gave me this challenging look. It wasn't some cute flirty thing, like about my sword or something. It was sharp and full of focus but more than that it was angry and a little scared. Her eyes were hard but the corners of her lips and eyebrows were turned out.

She actually seemed to want me to fight her on it, but I just raised my hands in surrender. "Ruby I believe you."

"So, the Grimm are the enemy."

"Its sounds like Cinder was somehow in charge to me." I tried. Her sideways backwards glance conveyed a deep annoyance.

"You're always so focused on Cinder you can't see the Grimm for what they are. These bandits are just people, but the Grimm are always, always the enemy."

I suddenly realized I was walking much faster than I had even a few moments ago, Ruby was already speeding up again.

I sighed.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Before, the two of us had been distracted as we'd approached Shion. This time we were both wary and ready. Ruby had felt the danger even before the destroyed village came into view. She'd casually pulled her weapon in the middle of the road, not even extending the scythe.

By the time we'd seen the place even I had felt it and we both knew it would be as empty as we'd left it.  
The recent dead would draw Grimm here like a beacon, spawning them? Summoning them?

It hardly mattered to Ruby because as soon as we approached the gate she'd disappeared in a blur of speed. A haze that seemed to shift from building to building.

It didn't look like anything worth spending ammunition on to her, so she didn't. Instead she almost lazily bounced from place to place, leaving bisected Beowolves and Creeps in her wake.

For my part I drew Crocea Mors and let them rush at me. Before, in Vale, I'd been forced to nearly wrestle the wolf-caricatures behind my shield. I was stronger and faster now, and the range afforded to me by the upgrade allowed me to cut them down before they could really approach me.

I stepped aside and Ruby landed next to where I had been standing to cover me from the sides.

"Doesn't seem like too many." She reported, "nothing big, either."

"Heard."

We slowly and efficiently worked our way through the weakest Grimm, clearing a path to the foot prints. She whirled around my sides, cutting anything that came too close into ribbons. For my part I held my ground against the monsters to anchor us.

Two swings removed the head and leg of a Beowolf and I stepped on a Creeper's head as it tried to bite me and crushed it easily.

By the time we arrived at where we knew the footprints began, the Grimm were nothing but curls of smoke.

"Jaune!"

"Hm!" I looked up quickly, trying to spot whatever it was that she wanted me to see. I glanced towards her to look where she was looking and look over there so I could look out for whatever it was she saw.  
She was just staring at me, though.

"What are you doing?"

"What?" I wondered.

"How are you doing that?"

"Ruby what are you talking about?"

"You're glowing!"

I looked down at myself. Odd bands of blue light were trailing around me. They almost looked like fire but if they were hot, I couldn't feel it. The wisps seemed ignorant of gravity, clinging only to me and my skin in soft trails of blue and white.

Ruby walked up to me. "What is this?"

She rolled her eyes. "That must be your semblance!" She reached out and traced a hand through one of the tendrils.

"Um…" I didn't want to sound too disappointed. She was so excited. I was kind of hoping for more than 'glow a little.' "Neat?"

"How does it feel?"

"The same." I thought about it. "I don't know. Is it doing anything?" I stepped back from Ruby as though it would give me a better look at myself for some reason and the light faded away.

"What did you do?" She wondered. "It went away."

"I didn't do it on purpose."

She frowned. "Well it didn't seem immediately obvious."

"Was yours like that."

"Um…" She turned an awesome rosé. "Kinda."

She turned away to examine the hoof marks in the ground trailing away from the village.  
I kept a watch, resting Crocea Mors against my arm, while Ruby peered down to get a better look at the print. It wasn't like she was unfamiliar with it or couldn't tell which way it was going. "I forgot how big it was… do you think the villages were just destroyed by a horde-phenomena?"

I shrugged. "It seems unlikely, the villages were in a non-linear order. It would have taken an awful coincidence for it to be just a large group of Grimm chasing the closest sadness and growing larger."

"The bandits." I nodded at her words. She chewed her cheek for just a moment. "Let's go, we're already almost a week behind it."

It wasn't like Ruby had really compromised my plans. Not truly, it was always really a toss up which we followed and which town would be destroyed next seemed just as random. Sure, I had some suspicions about GaiLong but Ruby dismissed it when I tried to bring up doubling back one more time.

"Jaune if they are watching us and waiting for us to go far enough away, then you won't catch them like this and what are we going to do, we can't stay in every place we go."

Hopefully the two of us could track it and slay it together. Or, failing that wound it, track it, and try again. It would heal but Ren implied that its regeneration wasn't a factor in the mid-game of a fight. Only if it actually escaped us would we regret having wasted our resources but wounding the creature and forcing it to flee wasn't a waste, per se. It could be a tool, too.

We had a lot of ground to make up. We were almost a week behind it when we left GaiLong and unlike us, it didn't need to sleep, eat, or do anything but wander.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was after the fourth day of tracking that it finally rained. We'd known it was going to happen, too. After the first crack of thunder, Ruby let out a low whine. "No," she just pleaded. It would still be hours before the rain came and washed most our tracks away.

She was tired and wet and cold. And I really wanted to get her into the tent and into her sleeping bag.

I didn't know what to do or say. We could both see the storm coming, feel the wind pick up and the humidity increase. I could do nothing but start to look for a good place to set up a tent.  
Ruby and I had done some light training, but you really didn't push yourself or work out much when you were trying to catch up to something like this. For my sake it was time to take watch and just to top my night off I had to be especially on guard tonight.

It was unusual for me to stay focused on watch, but I had to. I could feel something. It didn't feel like a person or anyone I knew so it was probably not nothing but the equivalent.  
Grimm.

I waited until it got close enough that I was sure I could destroy it without letting my senses drift from where Ruby slept.

I was sitting out waiting for the creature to stop nagging at my range and actually enter. It was just pacing around my range and eventually I'd had enough.

I kept my body low and my limbs out, but stealth wasn't my strong suite. It jumped through the bracket at me rather than I at it.

I moved in a burst, sweeping the long blade between us to stop its approach. It pushed me back a step and my ankle caught something.

I tripped and it fell on me. My armor held out it's claws buts its teeth snapped at my aura. I grunted and threw it off of me.

It was an Ursa. a different bone structure for a different part of the world but that seemed to be all the difference between those here and those in Vale.

It landed but rolled towards me quickly with a snarl but as I stood, I held my ground. I already knew how to deal with these. I swept Crocea Mors downwards over my head and cut its face diagonally and deep enough that I'd opened up large sections of its ribcage.

It fell and began to dissolve. I stepped back warily. I felt nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

I listened and heard no song of Grimm. The animals had gone quiet, too. Fearing a battle between two distant predators might involve them, but it was already over.

Then distinct, in the cold night distant, the zip of the tent.

I sighed.

"Jaune! Jaune, what was that." She was in thick socks that probably didn't feel good in the wet, icy, muck.

She had Crescent Rose ready though. Her biceps and triceps stood out in her shirt. She had nothing on but her simple T and some long bottoms in the night.

I stared at her white clothes in the sleet before coming to my senses. "It was just a small Grimm.

Everything's fine."

She breathed hard. "You're supposed to wake me up."

_You needed sleep and it was nothing I couldn't handle._

I looked her up and down. There was brisk and then there was being in PJs, in negative ten, with a wind chill, and at ninety-five percent humidity.

I walked over and dragged her into the tent. I flicked the flap open, but the inside was frigid. Just a few moments of being open had sapped whatever warmth was inside. "You can't act like this was my fault.

"You're supposed to wake me."

I nodded and rubbed her hands in mine. I pulled her wet socks off too. Her feet were just chilled to the absolute bone. I was considering trying to start a fire.

"Say something!"

"Huh what? You're right. I should have woken you up. Come on get some new socks on and get warm."

"I feel like I need a can opener with you; you're just so it's like -ugh. Aren't you frustrated?"

"No, I am." I assured her.

"Well why aren't you showing it?" Ruby wrapped her arms around her knees under her covers. "And your semblance too, you're not excited at all when it activates when we train."

"It only activates when I'm losing, doesn't last long, and doesn't do anything but make me glow." I shook my head and laughed a little.

It was fitting though, if I'd had this power at Beacon I would have been just as able to help Pyrrha.  
She hit me hard, enough sting. I gasped, my hand going to my chest where her hand hit my side, through some gap in all my armor she'd casually exploited to jab at just one of my ribs past a strap.

"You were thinking you were useless again. Weren't you, Jaune?"

Fuck.

"I'm sure it does more than make you look good."

Whiplash.

I waited.

"Well." She wondered.

"Well to what in all of that?"

"All of it!"

"I was trying to keep up the pace and find it and be on our way to Haven."

"So, it's because I need to get to Haven."

"Well that is your plan." I laughed and turned to look at her.

"Ugh." She murmured and looked down.

Huh?

"What is it? Is it something I said?"

She didn't look impressed by that. She crossed her arms confidently and set herself sideways. "Then what's it like? I forced you out here. To come with me to Haven and trek all the way across the world with me. Even though I had no idea how far that was."

"Ruby I did know how far it was. And I did know that if you hadn't…"

If she hadn't what, exactly? I was trying to fight but it was hard. It was a little like Weiss had rubbed off on Ruby, in some of her best ways. I'd found that confidence and authority attractive before but when it was directed at me it was hard to fight.

What could I possibly tell her? That I needed her to tell me what to do and give my life direction?  
She just told me how stressed she was I couldn't add to that. Couldn't have. I clicked my jaw in thought.

My teeth clacked together audibly.

She looked from my eyes to my jaw. Like I'd just bit her hard. "You shouldn't do that to yourself."

I laughed. "That's what I mean. What would I do if I didn't have you right now? If you hadn't taken me in, I don't know where I would have gone."

"You would have found something."

No. My family. I stole this from them. I can't go back. And Nora and Ren they got in with like a scholarship for hunters-to-be without parents or something. They were homeless again. I think they thought I'd abandon them.

"So, when you asked me to come it was just-it was a no-brainer. What would I have done? What l alternatives would I have had. And if I hadn't gone with you, would I have found Pyrrha's armor even? Would I know for sure what happened? It was like destiny. And this is too."

"You really think so?" I watched her hands fidget through her hair, somehow plucking at the red ones even out of the corner of her eye.

"Well no, it's more like I need to make this the timeline where I succeed, but we can. You know?"  
She shook her head. "You think if we're smart and hardworking enough, it'll be enough? That's not like you."

"Ruby this is just a setback. Even if it takes months. We have no timetable for getting to Haven. No tournament. No obvious target beyond the school and city which should be in a state of high alert."

Supplies still got traded as far as here so we know the blackout-panic hadn't destroyed the place.

Haven was probably still there, Just waiting for her, even if it didn't know it.

"But what about your semblance?" She pressed me. "You and me. Are we making progress there?"

"We'll have to time figure out to use it." If it had a use.

"Tss" I let out as I clutched a rib.

"You and me."

"Us?" I wondered stupidly.

"What are we, Jaune." She glanced at me. "What am I to you?"

_Good question._

I thought about it. It wasn't like I could just say she was my partner because that had connotations to huntsmen. If I just blurted out, she was my new partner it would hurt everyone.  
Besides she had made it clear that Weiss was her best friend. Whatever that meant to her.

"You're my oldest friend for sure." I told her. I knew that much. Whom was there before Pyrrha? Family didn't count. "Things are rough for me right now but it wasn't like I didn't think about you before, too."

"That's not fair," she whispered. "Pyrrha was…She made it clear she liked you a lot."

Ouch. But…

"You were so nice and sweet to me when I didn't deserve it. I could always count on you for advice and it was always good. "

"I don't know…" she trailed off. She pinched her lower lip between her index and thumb. She was listening close, her eyes intense on my every word.  
"Even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear. So, it sounds dumb to say something like boyfriend, but you can if you want."

"We're a couple." Ruby translated listening closely. "You make things so complicated."

"The thing about that is-"

"Do you love me?"

"Uh, yeah"

She smiled flushing, but she managed to roll her eyes and look right at me. For a moment I could hear nothing but the rain against the tent.

"Jaune I need you to better than 'uh yeah.'" she smiled adorably. It took me a second to realize she was teasing me. By the time I did so, my eyes flicked down to her lips and back up to her eyes. It was too late. Her smile roared across her face.

"You really want to kiss me, don't you? You can. You know. Maybe not all the time but you can kiss me."  
I did. I pushed her back against her thin mattress. I could feel her hip bone against my abdomen and the smooth curve of her sides. I put my hands around her back and pulled her in close to my and she let out a tiny sigh.

Her mouth opened in the slightest way and I couldn't help my-self. My tongue went forward at the same time I rolled us more forward, pinning her more beneath me.

She groaned into it, smiling into the kiss as I sucked on her tongue, then lip, then pulled away.  
Or tried to.

I drew back slightly but she had a tight grip on my shirt with her left hand. I hadn't even noticed. And her other hand became nestled in my hair.

She just… giggled at me, and, without so much as opening her eyes, dragged me down again.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I got down off the back of the animal before Ruby.

She was already waiting for me there.

She called the its name and it came when called. She didn't even need to pull her hair back as she rode, either, she somehow looked relaxed and focused. To be honest I was just so amazed to even watch her move above me.

She slung her legs up and over it and gently held the pommel in one of her small hands. The tips of her fingers just enough to reassure. She hardly needed it for balance she was so graceful.

Her other hand was firmly in the mane of the stallion's mane. After the night in the rain, we'd returned to Higanbana where they'd offered us horses. They'd already been made aware of our affairs and the local Dono was not to be out down by GaiLong, evidently.

I'd explained to them that an unless they had an awakened horse, they would not be able to carry me, let alone the both of us. Mei-Chi had smiled at me and I knew I would regret it.

"Who taught you how to ride?" I wondered.

"Oh, my mother showed me how when I was young. It's easy if you know how to care for it." Or you're a Nisdy Princess. I watched how easily she controlled it and made it calm. Sure, it was trained but when I'd been encouraged to take the lead on the animal it had given me nothing but contempt.

"Do you know how?" She wondered. "You've somehow expertly dodged climbing on the back of one." She stroked it gently with her hands. Enjoying the sensation.

"I… know the basics," I hedged. "I have ridden before."

"Yikes, that bad, huh." she teased me, and I groaned. "But not in a while and with someone else."

I shook my head, "this'll be a first for us."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	5. Flower Girl I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Jaune had taken to horseback riding like he had everything else in his life and I sighed a little as I watched him navigate the creature around a bend. He had his eyes on another storm as we made our way up into the mountains, where Jaune suspected the monster hid.

He was so focused on the storm, he hardly noticed how easily he led the horse around. Tomorrow, when they got started again, he would have to pretend to remember how.

The goofball.

I followed, leading my own stead up and towards where'd just lost sight of him.

"You all right, Rubes," his voice came from around the curve. He was tuned into me, it would seem. I wasn't sure if I was broadcasting or if it was just part of how good he was that he could feel something like that with his aura.

Or maybe he just was paying attention and heard me.

"Just thinking." The stable and dependable sound of the hooves against the ground was a bit of a metronomic comfort to me. A bit like something mechanical. After a while the horse and the movement and the sound felt like part of me.

"You've been quiet for a bit, is all." I knew that if I wanted, I could just leave things like that. But I did want to talk. Was that so wrong?

"You trying to say I'm not usually quiet?" I challenged. "You trying to say I'm chatty?"

He came back into view and I had to see his smirk. "Yeah, a little."

"Butt." He deserved it, too. I pouted at him as best as I could and watched red rise his neck with private glee. It wasn't fair how easy it was to talk to him sometimes. When Yang abandoned me for her friends at Beacon I never would have thought I'd run into someone like Jaune.

"You don't talk about your family much." I wanted to know more about him. He knew about my family, which was sweet. Maybe I should, too. "Is there any reason for that?" I eventually managed. We shared emotions but I wanted to know about his history, too.

Blame a girl.

It was slow progress with Jaune, but I'd sort of known that would be the case from the start. The start being Beacon, of course, that day we'd first met. The fact that Jaune had seemed just as nervous as I had that day had immediately calmed me down enough to talk to him.

"I sort of told you a bit…"

"The sisters." I agreed. "But your parents. What are they all like?"

"They were… well…" I watched him struggle with himself and how he wanted to phrase it for me. "I told you I had to steal the sword and break into Beacon to get in, right? My parents never thought I could make it as a huntsman."

Yikes. Okay, how do I crack this egg?

Jaune seemed to be mulling the same thing over. Still, despite how personal the subject was he didn't seem hesitant on sharing it with me. He was just picking his words right.

Jaune was like that, it made him easier to talk to than most guys. Too easy, really.

It wasn't like I hadn't talked to guys. They really weren't so different from girls, afterall. Not that I'd been super great at talking to them, either. My first attempts at conversing with Weiss and Blake had been so flat that I found myself cringing a little thinking about it even in the saddle.

Me and Weiss had eventually figured things out. It had taken time and effort in a lot of ways like what I was doing with Jaune now, but it was different. A different kind of casual, and a different kind of ease.

Weiss didn't give me sigh for sigh like Jaune did and she never reflected my blushes.

He was cute like that.

Sure, now Weiss was my best friend and she always would be. but compared to how Jaune and I had clicked together so easily and effortlessly. Plus, the way our bodies fit together so easily on the saddle and I found myself relaxing back into his chest.

Anyways, Weiss, Yang, and even Blake had quickly dismissed him. It wasn't their fault really. Jaune hadn't looked like much. It was easy for other people to write Jaune off, but I'd seen what he really was. Or if not what he was, then I'd seen what he could be, and I wasn't the only one either.

Pyrrha had obviously seen it, too.

Gosh, I didn't like to think about Pyrrha much. Or Penny a whole lot either. That was awful of me, really. Wasn't it? Thinking of either one made me sad and to be honest thinking about Pyrrha stirred a bunch of awful feelings that I was unsure of how to deal with at all.

Sweet little Ruby Rose jealous of her dead friend?

It made me a little sick to my stomach. If Pyrrha had lived would she and Jaune have shared this ride? Would I have stood a chance against her? Would I have even realized how much I cared about him if this hadn't happened and he hadn't come with me to Anima?

It wasn't fair to anyone to think like that, though. It wasn't fair to Pyrrha who would want the best for Jaune, maybe that wasn't me, maybe it was. I thought it was. I could be a little biased, but I thought he was smiling more.

It was just that I never got to see Pyrrha smile more or give me her blessing or whatever. I was certain she would have given it to me. I was certain she would laugh about it, too. I would certainly have liked it, though.

But if she was alive to give it to me, she wouldn't need to because she would be with Jaune.

It wasn't fair to Jaune who deserved the chance to move on. Lingering on what could have been with Pyrrha had only dragged Jaune into this awful depression. When Pyrrha had first died Jaune had been so empty and had so little energy all the time.

He didn't even have the energy to make fun of himself, which, trust me, I am working on. At least he was doing a little of that again.

Yay?

Last of all it wasn't fair to me either because I loved him, too.

At the end of the day was I supposed to not love him because she loved him and was gone now? If everyone did that the world would be the most lonely and bleak place.

"My parents and I aren't close at all."

"Were they mean to you?" A bit of a loaded question but I had to know. I rode up beside up, the road wide enough for us to ride side by side again. "Like Weiss' parents?"

He just shook his head. "Not really, but they weren't around much either."

This was bad. Um… "I'm sure they loved you."

"I wished they would have loved me different." He confessed, biting his cheek.

"And your sisters?" Well if his parents weren't there, then did he at least have somebody?

"They were all a lot younger than me." He just shrugged. "I mean like six years, at least."

That wasn't a lot now, per se. But it would have been when he was younger. That sort of implied he wasn't that close to any of them.

"Ah." I wasn't sure how to handle that, really. I was close to mine after all. A lot of what I did had to do with my family if only because it seemed like my family was somehow personally responsible for the last few decades of Remnant's history.

Of course, I couldn't share that with Jaune because I didn't know either. Uncle Qrow hadn't been clear on that.

"Well did you have friends back home?" Anybody at all?

"Not really, and not much of a home either." Jaune struggled. "Like I said. If you hadn't asked me to come with you here, then I'm not sure where I would have gone. You, Nora, and Ren are all I really have."

"What about the rest of your friends from Beacon. Like my team." He just kind of shook his head.

"I'm with as much of your team at once as I can be, now." He grinned.

Right.

"And if I had the choice, I think I would rather be alone with you." He gave me this confident grin. I recognized it as a little like the one he sometimes pressed against my lips.

"Uh…" I thought for a desperate moment, I couldn't let him distract me with that. "You know CFVY, right?"

He shook his head and chuckled a little. "Ruby it's fine."

"It's not alright. I don't want…" I don't want you to have been lonely? "Ugh… never mind." I sat in silence for a minute and felt Jaune try and work up the courage to ask me what I meant. I wasn't really sure what I meant so I moved on. "Should we stop and set up a camp."

He'd been watching his scroll with the regularity he usually had when he was trying to be mindful of the time and make sure that we'd be safe for the night. It was an easy way to distract him. "I'm that obvious, huh."

"Just to me," I grinned. He scouted a place to stay and dismounted in front of me. We both knew he didn't need to, but he still helped me down off my horse. He was a gentleman like that.

As he tried to swing me down to the ground, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.

"Maybe tonight will be the night we figure out what your semblance does!"

He laughed to himself without smiling. He was doing it again, he thought I couldn't hear him, making fun of himself, but I could.

He thought that because his semblance was weak now it would always be.

The goofball.

I knew that Jaune's semblance was going to be something special the moment I saw the soft glow, a deep blue, like his eyes, rather than his usual golden aura. The soft light flared as he killed the Grimm, and he didn't even notice it.

I knew it would be when the use wasn't immediately obvious.

I knew it was special because it didn't seem to do anything at all.

It was just Jaune.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	6. Genkai Wo Koeru I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Everyone knows that first rule of warfare is to always do your fighting far from home. That way, none of the stuff you care about gets broken. The second rule was then to not fight near anything else you cared about either.

Spears and axes and swords littered the floor of the Nuckelavee's den. The soil inside was distinctly more orange than the tan-brown of the hills outside. A remnant of the rust that had come from the weapons discarded in this place. The iron rusted and leaked into the ground even from steel weapons.

I hoped there weren't actually any _iron_ weapons beneath my feet.

Blood covered the walls too, in some places it congealed thick enough to cover the floor and weapons. It dripped and ran around in deep rivulets.

_Blood. _I snorted.

It was Grimm goo, not blood. Fucking idiot.

"What on Remnant could possibly be funny." I turned and took in Ruby's ashen face. Narrowed eyes turn towards me with squinted nostrils. I held up my gloves hands in placation.

Dozens of arrows and _layers _of rusted swords over brown dirt. The thick footprints of our target were everywhere crushing down, and shattered weapons pushed down into the soil by its feet.

A Beowulf's skull began to rise from a particularly large puddle nearby Ruby gave me bit of heat and made to turn towards it.

"No let me," I intruded, and I stalked over to it. "Sorry I was… I was in my head a bit for a second there. And I was trying to get into its head too." I hopped around a mostly intact spear, careful of destroying any evidence.

I wasn't sure what was going to count as evidence later or how long I wanted to stay here, but you never knew.

"It's okay," she mumbled. "You just going to see what you can find?"

She didn't want to be in here at all. "Scout out the door. I really don't want to get cornered in here." She nodded. The place had had good line of sight down the mountain with only a few blinds. Probably because the big bad was scared of someone sneaking up on it.

Like I was now.

I pulled the bastard sword from over my shoulder and casually sank it into the Grimm.

"Got it," she pulled her rifle out and walked over to where she could easily look through the scope. A lot of movies depicted trained huntsmen who closed one eye while looking down their sight. This was not the case. Trained professionals keep both eyes open to maintain visibility and their peripheral vision.

When Ruby didn't have a person to cover her blind side, such as right now, she had a mirror she could flick out at the end of Crescent rose to let her peak around her own blind.

She was a professional.

She'd designed everything so that she could be solo if she needed to. And really, Crescent Rose was the most ideal weapon for… well, everything about her. Killing Grimm up close, and far away. It helped out with her movement, too, not that she needed it.

This was what a prodigy who had the best training all their lives looked like in action. She'd been trained and taught for this all her life and further it was well understood that aura changed your DNA. Especially after generations, powers, abilities, traits could get powerful and dynamic.

It wasn't like she didn't work hard either. She was working every moment she was awake. Usually she was working on being a better person as well as a better huntress.

That meant saving everyone in this valley that she could.

It even meant saving my soul.

"I got this Jaune." she murmured easily. She swiveled in place to survey the landscape.

I took photos of the place with my scroll and kicked dust through any splotches that I thought were too large to be ever left unattended.

I tried to reel in my feel of the place. It was out in the open, really. But it would be a bitch to fight inside of here. It only seemed to come here after it was hurt in some way. It rested for a bit and its remnants spawned more Grimm, but this wasn't the only place it stayed. This wasn't its only den or lair. It wasn't certainly not a home. Nothing was homely about it.

The arrows and spears that lined the walls above me were there for decoration. Nothing in here was. It was just a place that the beast came to lick its wounds. It was a Grimm hospital, they were born here and healed here.

There wasn't anything that could be called a nest or a place to sleep or even lie down. The Deathstalker I'd run into in initiation had just been standing in the dark doing absolutely nothing but _waiting._

The Nukelavee didn't give a fuck about this place unless it was injured.

_Until. Until it was injured._

It had been here… relatively recently. It wasn't here now and the Beowulf and anything else hadn't fully spawned. The horses had gotten too nervous to approach much further and we'd had to leave them behind to fight our way here, the Grimm population was more dense than usual.

But they hadn't finished spawning. They hadn't all left and there should have been more trickling out from this place. I rubbed my eyes.

If there were Grimm lingering in lairs around the mountains, then when the first few villages were destroyed, and the news spread, and they got drawn out then there would be a wave of destruction across the valley.

All the villages.

Potentially.

All it would take was a sudden shift in equilibria to get the ball rolling. Even if the Black-Out-Day panic hadn't brought the villages down, something else could. The bandits, the news of one village being destroyed, or anything. Maybe something else outside the valley could cause it too.

I really had no idea, but, with this in mind, when we made camp and I could look over the maps, maybe I'd get a sense of where it was. In the end I'd have to guess based on the pattern of destruction.

I worked fast, regardless of my new paranoia. If it retreated here, I didn't want it to get better here. I walked up to Ruby.

"Anything?" She wondered at me.

I got to work at her feet. Working through some of my pockets of gear. I dug a small pit and began to lay down a mechanical and electrical switch. "Maybe something. I don't think it's been here in a bit, but maybe if we find the next destroyed village I can find out."

She breathed hard and nodded. The thought would kill her, but it was what it was. "What's that?"

"Landmine, small one. If it comes back, I want it to not feel comfortable here, or in any of it's other lairs." I breathed.

"You know how to set explosives?" She glanced out of her scope towards me. "Huh, I didn't know that about you."

I looked down at my feet. "Yeah… Pyrrha taught me?"

She cocked her head at me and to be honest I just looked right back because for a moment I somehow thought that maybe she would provide me with the answer. This… whole plan of rooting out its lairs and driving it out was dependent on the crystals I had and my ability to set traps with them.

But I don't ever remember her teaching me.

Ruby turned back to look out through her scope. "She taught you that, but not how to shoot."

"Hear me out…"

She snorted. "The nearest big village is… two days or two weeks, depending on your definition of big. You think if we go as fast as we can, we can make it to one of them."

"_Jaune do you think we can save it if we run really fast?"_

"_No Ruby, if the Grimm accumulated here and rushed them they're gone, especially if there's banditry involved. They're dead as shit."_

"_Jaune what the he-"_

I mean what was the alternative?

I nodded and glanced upwards. "Hand me a crystal," I requested with an outstretched hand.

She reached behind her and gave me a yellow one. It was big enough to fit in the palm of my hand. A large even faced object of bright yellow.

It was in its raw form, purely destructive. Hopefully destructive enough to maybe blow off a limb of this nuckelavee. Especially if it was retreating here while it was already injured.

I held it in the light for a moment before trying to look through the crystal. Before I remembered the futility. Light behaved oddly with dust due to the strange electrodynamics properties the substance had. You could look inside the crustal, as though it was clear as glass from one side, but then the opposite side of the crystal only reflected a certain index of light.

In this case, all I could see was yellow, no matter how I held it. I rotated it in the light for a second before refocusing and burying the crystal.

The geometry inside caused some violation of Magic-Wand-Theorem and light seemed to exit into my eyes without ever having entered the crystal at all. The meta material that made up the crystal interacted with light oddly as a result of the energy inside. Some electromagnetic interaction but it was all based on optics somehow. It was a bit like relativity, though, there was energy in that, and there was energy inside this, too. It relied on that geometry for storage using something called 'Mang-Yills Theory.'

I didn't get the math behind it, but I didn't really understand how my scroll worked too well either. What was enough for me, though, was that there was energy inside, and a lot of it. Enough to kill even a creature like this with just a palm-full.

"Set," I said standing up. "Don't step there."

"Got it. We're clear to move, I think I see something, though. Its just a trailer marker, cloth on a stick to catch the wind." I frowned at that. "Should we check it out?"

I squinted out. The area she was pointing too was on an opposite mountain face. They'd need to climb down the pass they'd started on into a book-shelf and then back up again. I could barely make it out. Ruby shuffled and handed me the sight off of Crescent Rose.

I just shook my head, turning down the assistance and frowning at the waving white cloth. "You can see it from here?" She wondered. I glanced over and saw her try and squint at it while stilted on her toes.

"Uh yeah." I wondered. "Anyways… I think we should. The implication is that whoever set that marker could have seen this cave." It was out in the open, relatively speaking. Being in this same set of peaks meant you could see this den.

It meant you could see me, too.

"What do you think it is?"

I shivered. "Jaune?" She wondered. The movement had been enough to wrack my spine and visibly bend me

I wanted to draw my weapon and move but my aura gave me nothing. It was, for a terrifying moment, like all of God's attention was on me. I straightened and lifted my hand to my weapon only for Ruby to catch it between hers. "What do you feel?" She wondered.

She pressed close to me and I focused on reaching out with my senses. "I feel…" I tried to get a grip on what I meant. "I'm not sure. We shouldn't stay here." I put my weapon away and Ruby relaxed. "Sorry." The feeling had passed. I felt nothing.

"Let's check out that marker." I cemented before I could change my mind.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I wish that I had changed my mind.

When we came up to the marker, I wasn't sure what to expect, but Ruby nearly vomited at the sight.

We had to fight our way up. I'd wondered where the Grimm had gone from the den, now I knew at least in part. These centipedes harassed us near the base and we cut them in half easily. Our senses assuring us what reason was enough to let us know.

We would have to carry our weapons out and ready through the whole hike and be ready to fight. Again. It was passed mid-day already and would probably be night by the time we got back.

"We might need to take two attempts at this." I gestured with my sword up the hill.

Ruby disagreed. "We have to do this now, right. Plus, GaiLong and Higanbana could be next and we need to go back there, right." She marched ahead of me and I followed as she buried the longest edge of Crescent Rose in the armor of a beetle.

I nodded. It had been nearly three weeks since I had last been in contact with them. Besides trying to figure out if they were still there, I wanted to know if anything else was gone.

I was completely out of the loop.

Ruby bounced back towards me and split a carapace in two. "Yuck, are they all bugs?"

For a moment I almost wondered about it. But trying to understand the why's of the Grimm was maddening. The how's and where's were mine but that was most definitely not. "No idea."

There were a lot of bug Grimm, though.

I struck one and I heard a strange whooshing noise that made me jump. It was my semblance it just activated out of nowhere. I sighed. I'd been started by my own semblance.

"Woah," Ruby wondered. "Look at that."

She walked up to me and I glanced around. There seemed to be a lull anyways and she paced up to me and looked at the swirls of light. I tried to keep an eye out but when she put her hand through it and touched me I got distracted.

"What happened?" She wondered. "Did you get hit?"

I shook my head before frowning. "I don't think so."

"Hmm." She continued to analyze me. "Well what do you think happened."

"I'm not sure," she looked, well, not _disappointed_ but patient.

"Well I think it makes you faster."

I blinked. "You do."

She nodded. "When we fight, I think you can move better while it lasts."

I hadn't felt anything like that. "I'm not sure." I sighed.

"Well I hope you decide soon."

"I don't think it works that way." She rolled her eyes at me and turned around and walked away from me.

I looked away from her as she began to climb again and watched the glow until it faded. The light, already hard to see in the sun, disappeared completely. I bit my cheek a little. I glanced up and restarted my gait behind her, resuming our marching up the face.

On our way up we started finding piles of stones with those sticks and markers all leading somewhere. We chose the direction we thought would take us up and climbed.

When we reached the peak, we found a flattened area of earth in a way that I was sure could only have been done by people. A solid trail had formed near the end of the markers and it transitioned to actual stone. "Jaune, I don't like this."

"Grimm?" She shook her head. I glanced across the small stone pavilion. It had four pillars at each of the ordinates and was raised to a middle section with a dais at the top as though the mountain was a whole ziggurat leading up to this pyramid.

"It feels so sick up here."

I wondered at that. Her senses about it were better than mine. "Like the villages?"

"No." She shuddered. "Not the same."

Okay.

I resigned myself.

"Do you want me to go on ahead." I wondered. The path bent here and went up around a small pine tree. She was out of breath but even after the few Grimm we'd encountered and the steep hike she should have been fine.

Her cardio was fantastic, I would know.

I watched her throat as she swallowed hard. Pink lips drawn tight over something a step above a grimace. Or as much of a grimace as she could manage.

She shook her head and her red tips swung in a hypnotic wave. So committed, she led the way forward, and I followed her up, only to get in the way as she tried to rush past me back down.

In the center of the dais was the remnants of a person. Just one, no older bones lined the area. I could tell by the -uh- freshness of it. Ruby slunk back off and I couldn't blame her.

I listened to the sound of Ruby gasping behind me and turned around. "Rubes are you alright, you need a minute?"

"Just… give me some air, alright?" I winced and turned around. It was for me to figure this out then.

I looked through what was left of them. Whoever they were. Their rib cage was casually crushed, and I didn't see their skull anywhere, but I did see bits of things I was sure was supposed to be inside one a little further up on the slab and splattered on the ground where it mixed with brown dust.

The blood run along the smooth grey tiles until it congealed. It wasn't some crazy temple where the blood ran in some ruggoldberg design. It just pooled beside gross chunks of used to be.

It was honestly a mess and easily the grossest thing I had ever had the displeasure of being this close to.

Still, I tried to scan it over anyways. Ignoring my instinct to gag. The spine was in pieces just lining the center of the slab and most of a leg remained on the other side of the pavilion. There was some rope wrapped around where a foot was supposed to be and there was soaked cloth everywhere.

There on the slab, a whole hand was still tied in place to the side and I sighed in utter revolution and disappointment in humanity. Human sacrifice wasn't something uncommon per se. Nor was using it to manipulate the Grimm either. I mean, it had existed on every continent since as long as people could write things down.

This wasn't that old, though. Well, I don't know, it could be, but it looked like it had only been used recently. It didn't have like the bones of millennia or anything or some clue into the cause of human suffering. It just seemed to be one place where recently a really horrible thing had happened to one person.

I paced back down out of the pavilion to where Ruby was waiting. "So, uh Jaune uh how was it? Oh, I'm sorry, are you-"

I just held up a hand. "It's uh- how the bandits are luring it around, creating a horde," I explained. "They aren't laying sieges they're setting breadcrumbs."

"So what do we do. Just follow the markers?" She wondered.

"We head to the nearest village. I suspect if we follow the markers, we'll end up there anyways and we'll find the occasional body along the way."

"And?"

"It'll be destroyed," I continued. "If I'm right." It would explain how little Grimm were in the area.

"Or maybe we can head to the second place. Try and cut of the horde and save them," Ruby tried. She started to walk swiftly away from the open space where the man had been left to die screaming.

I shook my head. "The attacks aren't linear like that, or, after Shion, they would have destroyed Higanbana."

"No." Ruby insisted. "We aren't too late, we can still save them."

"Ruby-"

"Come on. We can cut off this group, you don't know if that first place-uh…uh…" She snapped her fingers. "Chen Liu. It's called Chen Liu and you don't even know if it is destroyed or not. You're just guessing. We can make it Jaune," she begged. "We can make it."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Ruby wait-" she didn't.

We'd rode hard almost as the crow flew to get here and she hardly let her horse to a stop before she dismounted. Rather than hop off or even something even more athletic she flew apart into a scatter of petals. She came apart around the horse and then back together, ending the motion into a rapid jog for her. It was a sprint to nearly anyone else. She flowed to the edge of the cliff where we could see Chen Liu burning.

She gave me a look back and her cloak wrapped around her. I thought she might have glared at me but in the low light her backwards glance was hard to measure.

The heat I felt for a moment and the distant orange glow of the town made me halt. Pulling my horse aside and gathering hers as well. I felt a cool breeze on my cheek and Ruby was gone.

She wrapped herself in her cloak like she herself was the stamen of a blossom. Her body disappeared into the red mass entirely, it was literally no longer there. She took off like a bat from the cliff, wrapping herself in crimson wings and taking off.

I sighed, but there was no way she heard me over the screech of nevermore passing overhead. I dropped down off my horse and pulled Crocea Mors.

I could do nothing but watch a scattering of petals from one of the skyward Grimm. A distant gunshot marked the nevermore's end. Ruby would tell you it wasn't hard to ride one. She'd done it once before, after all.

I dashed off after her. It was nearly a half mile in full gear and started by sliding down the cliff after her.

I watched Ruby flick to the top of the tower as little more than flower fragments. She bounced from there off some distant nevermore and back like a maddening ping pong ball. Ruby doing Ruby things.

I dashed into the center of the village and took in Ruby's battle against some horrific combination between bear and gorilla. I watched it grab a beowulf and throw it at Ruby where she'd been taking shots at it from a roof.

"Yaah!" I heard her call out in surprise and in exertion as she had to deal with the missile. I sunk the tip of Crocea Mors into the ground and continued my charge straight at it. I slammed edge first at a full sprint into this Bearingle's back.

It whipped around and tried to grab me by the- well- all of me. It's hands were as large as my torso. So, it tried to grab me by the everything, but like a normal person when confronted with something like that and I just stepped back.

I flicked out my sword into its stomach. Then reversed it and brought all the way down and impacted across it's chest. I cut it brutally but the material was too tough for me to just bisect.

Ruby cut the Beowulf down and launched herself down towards me with shot from her rifle. "Jaune!?"

I turned to her surprised look. She was surprised? Had she thought I would just sit back and watch?

The Bearingle hit me into a church building and I felt the whoosh of my semblance arrive. Now I was inside of a wall and glowing and in pain instead of just the first and last.

I pushed myself out of it and a wolf came up and grabbed my left arm in it's jaws and clawed it's teeth at me. I maneuvered my arm and grabbed it's neck. I threw it to the ground hard enough to bounce it and swung upwards.

It fell into four dissolving prices. A leg here. Half a torso there. I stepped out and cut down two more and looked up to the sound of gun fire. Ruby was bouncing between other minor Grimm and the larger older Bearingle.

She turned into petals and reformed beside me. "You okay?" I just nodded back. "I'm going to go low, you go and kill it." She informed me. As though it was that easy.

"Shouldn't you-" she should be the one to go high.

"Just use your semblance." She dashed off low and I was forced to sprint after her. Even if it was a bad plan, both of us doing it together would be better than us doing different things. Not that it was a bad plan, per se. She was just counting on my semblance and, by extension, me.

I had to do it though. I didn't have much choice. She… she was good at forcing me to do things was she. She was already in the thick of it, depending on my arrival. All of it.

It hadn't been just here either. When she'd called me up to go to Haven, did she think that I could have said 'no' to her?

I laughed a little out loud.

_Cruel of you Ruby. _

"You can do it Jaune! Now!"

If I was going to do it, it had to be now, before my semblance faded. So, I had no choice but to move, to act as fast as I could.

I tried to keep up with her but she outstripped me, as always. If I was faster now than before, Ruby was an impossible benchmark to measure against. It was a little like measuring the speed of light against the speed of sound. Even if the speed of sound was fast, so what?

She dashed behind it and hooked her scythe around it's legs. She pulled the trigger and the gorilla fell forward to the ground.

Or started to. I jumped and lifted Crocea Mors behind my head until it was all the way behind me. As I fell, I swung it forward over my head with all my body weight. The middle of the weapon hit clean.

The middle of the weapon connected most solidly on the brute's shoulder and sunk deep. Not enough to really cut it in two vertically but close enough that darkness began to seep upwards from it.

There was this satisfying whack too, the weapon hit clearly but the force was enough to not just cut through the Grimm's flesh, but also to crush the bone plating and rip it out. Bones cracked, flesh peeled and I stepped back to watch it dissolve into nothing. "What was that?" I wondered to Ruby.

"Well what do you think it was?"

"Did I use my semblance somehow?" I guessed. It had been a bit of a blur. I caught her grin at me. Leaning on her scythe and wrapping her hands around the handle.

She giggled a little at something. Some joke I wasn't privy to. "Yeah, Jaune. It worked, better than you know."

"Your plans are like that."

"Oh Jaune, it wasn't my idea. " She glowed for a moment at me and I felt my heart swell at her. The rush of my blood and affection made me dizzy. It only lasted a moment; she noticed me looking and turned back to the burning town. "Come on, you're always dilly-dallying."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	7. Genkai Wo Koeru II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I hadn't exactly gotten the details on what had happened with my semblance because Ruby had moved so swiftly to the next problem. Ever onwards and upwards.

I wasn't going to ask either. She was so exhausted even before. Plus, there were other concerns to deal with. Like taking the legs off a Sabretooth Puma. I sidestepped it like it was a bull, it got closer than I would have liked but the range of my sword allowed me to clip one limb enough to make it stumble. With that I was able to divide its head from its body.

When my semblance came back again later it wasn't because I was losing. I removed limbs distantly before stepping in and throughout dicing the Grimm which possessed them. It wasn't neat and clean like Ruby's, but it was working.

As before I activated it from dealing damage. Again, I'm really not sure. Ruby wasn't telling me, but she also wasn't stopping to enjoy it either.

I think I sort of _spent _it again, though. If that makes sense. It was frighteningly easy, but I just reached out and sank the tip of Crocea Mors into the belly of an Ursa and ripped it in half.

I stepped over it and continued onwards.

Like I said, our focus remained on the village. Not on these little victories.

"I think I feel something in here." Ruby gestured towards a burning cobblestone and wooden structure. Home. House.

The hardest part about searching through a wave of energy like fire was that it was hard to distinguish the flames from something like a group of people burning to death, so we were forced to search the rubble in a more manual fashion.

Ruby grimaced at my treatment of her, but I dug Crocea Mors under the fallen blocks of cemented stone and with a grunt I heaved downwards.

I lifted most of the collapsing structure and Ruby glanced in only to recoil from the heat. She just backed up grimacing, shaking her head. No person could survive in there without aura and even if they had it, they wouldn't be at it long.

The insides of burning buildings were like giant furnaces, sometimes. Except they were also collapsing and melting.

It wasn't hard to imagine somebody cooking dinner or working on _something _when the attack started. Then there would be a fire on top of everything else for the city watch to take care of and suddenly there was no more civilization.

It wasn't dinner I thought I smelled burning inside, though, but it was _something _made of protein.

I yanked Crocea Mors free of the building and nearly dropped it on us. Well, in fairness I tried to lower it into place but then it started to collapse anyways. Ruby was already free, pink and gone. She probably shouted something super helpful which could even have saved my life.

I missed it and then the fire struck me. Raked at my aura as the building fell inwards, a block of lumber struck me and together with the burning wave of air it was enough to charge my semblance.

Or activate it. I'd guess. As before it seemed like I'd hit a threshold between taking and dealing enough damage.

I landed beside Ruby with a grunt back on the stone church. Together and alone in the village, we surveyed the burning wreckage.

Or rather, alone with the Grimm. Us and it.

"You can say it, you know."

"Huh?" The moon was still high, but the sun was rising with the fire fading. The two combined maintained an even orange and red glow. There was no rush to get anywhere and we had nothing to do but try and explore the ashes. If we wanted to keep looking. We were finding the same thing in nearly every place we found anything.

"At the cave, you told me it would be destroyed, and look-"

"-Ruby," I tried.

She finished anyway, "-it was. You can say 'I told you so.'"

I looked at her pale face. Her cheeks were white, or else covered in ash. So much so that I couldn't make out her trademark blush. I had to recoil a little from that. I looked away and brushed ash and wooden flakes from Crocea Mors.

"Why would I want to?" I didn't let the hurt I felt run from my voice. "Why would I have wanted to be right about any of that."

"I-" Ruby stuttered off. "I'm sorry." She said nothing more for a beat. I bit my cheek and rubbed my stinging chest through my armor. "The way you figured this out. It looks like you don't feel any of it. The way you looked at the cave, and the body, and the _bodies_. It's like you don't care at all." She winced.

"I'm looking at the same things you are Rubes."

"I know, I know. I'm just…" I waited for her to finish her thought be she didn't. I held out one of my arms to embrace her.

"Ruby…" I murmured. I wasn't hurt by what she said, I was just trying to puzzle it out. She took the opportunity to bury her face in my chest.

She would never hurt me on purpose.

"I'm so tired of being too slow," she sobbed a little. "Too far behind the bandits, or cultists or whatever they are. Too slow to stop the big one or even these little ones."

"You can't be everywhere," I tried. Like she didn't know that. "Ruby if you couldn't get it done, nobody could have. You want too much from you."

"What about you? You're here."

"Yeah, but I do what you tell me, I just don't let you tell me how to do what you tell me to." That seemed to be what I was for, anyways.

She sniffled back a laugh, but I heard it. I wiped the ash from her face and kissed her forehead before pulling her back in and rubbing her back and stroking her hair. "I wish I had saved someone, though."

I nodded. The first rule of warfare was to know thy enemy. If you know their strengths and weaknesses and mindset you can beat them. The corollary being to know thyself, or they can do the same back to you.

"You saved me today."

"You never needed my help," she frowned. "You held your own just fine all day. You can never see the progress you've made."

"I did all of that because of you."

"It was all Pyrrha," she insisted. "It was her plan."

I traded it easily. "Pyrrha isn't here and you are and even if she was, she wouldn't have done it like you did. I'm not the same person I would have been. I'm someone else now because of you."

"And Pyrrha."

"Yeah and Pyrrha and you and my parents and anyone I've ever met if you want to. That's not what I mean. Ruby, I'm telling you that no one can do this like you." I squeezed her hands in mine. "What would I be doing without you?"

"You would have been fine. And this all turned out into nothing!"

"Not nothing," I insisted.

She whipped up at me. Eyes full of tears. "Then what? What has this been for? What have I actually done?"

"I tried to kill myself at Beacon once," I explained Ruby shuddered in my arms, but I just squeezed her tighter. I tried to bring her as close to my chest as I could.

"Jaune…" she moaned but she wasn't sure what could console me.

"Pyrrha stopped me. Then after… I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't put me together again. These last few months even if they are spent in vain for our journey, they haven't been worthless."

She sniffed and shivered in my arms. I could feel her heart breaking for every person she'd ever met. I shifted Crocea Mors to my back and pulled the bastard sword.

We didn't say anything, I just carried her in a close silence. I drank in her arms around my neck and chest and how close her hair was. Sweat and grime were a familiar duo for us to share these times with. We'd been fighting and hiking and riding for weeks.

In those few minutes, I tried to give her a lifetimes worth vacation. I didn't, couldn't, and was doomed to fail from the start.

If I could have, I'd have plucked even something so bright as a dandelion from the brown grey and dull green steppes, but there was nothing I could see in the nearby hills that was half as bright as the tips of her hair.

I felt nothing and nothing and sheathed my sword behind me. I moved to brush her tears from her eyes but she sniffed and recoiled.

She pushed gently at my chest through my armor. I realized I'd felt it without looking and suddenly I knew it wasn't her body I was really feeling, though, the weight and breath felt nice. It was nice. Only nice. The contact that set my skull on fire wasn't with her body. Or just with her body, that is to say.

I felt her presence as always, but I realized it wasn't just her perfume or sweat or musk or touch. I could feel her aura against mine. It was electric even through the plate.

I almost leaned into it. Had been. Perhaps had been for longer than I realized. How much could be transmitted through aura? Most of human communication was non-verbal anyways. Had I been broadcasting like this all the time and receiving it too and not known about it? Were we a special case?

I couldn't ask and didn't care. Not now.

I could feel what she wanted, though. We walked in silence from the ruined village. Our horses shyly approached her. She shushed them, even though they were totally calm. She wiped her tears and brushed the bridge of Georgia's nose.

"Of course. I'm sorry Jaune. You're right." She slid up onto the Georgia's back and I clambered onto Indiana. I was worried she might fall asleep in the saddle and I took the lead and reached over and stole her leads.

She just drooped and rested against the horse. She made it look easy too, as easy as laying in a hammock. She yawned and if she ever did that closer to me face again, then I would kiss her until I was cross-eyed.

She pulled her hood up over her eyes. "So, what I'm just supposed to take first watch? What if I'm tired?" Already I was thinking of how to get far away from here. We couldn't stay here, bandits and else besides lurked in the hills.

Sparing her some time to rest was everything.

She giggled. "You're more amazing than you know, you know that, right Jaune?"

"Yes," that didn't make me very special, thoug-

"Not this time, you don't get to hide your head in the clouds. You need to say it."

"Maybe."

"I'll get it out of you."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I'd like to say that I'd been perfectly on guard and ready for the attack. I mean, I'd told Ruby how the bandits were doing what they were doing. Setting lures and manipulating the Grimm. We hadn't been subtle either, though.

Ruby playing pac-ping in the sky didn't detract at all from our presence. She literally flew around, and we'd made no attempt to hide our attempt to save the village. We couldn't. That made us obvious targets.

All that aside my semblance glows in the dark, and I'd been consciously trying to activate it while riding. We were just taking a mellow pace to try and get back to civilization, so I wasn't doing much more than steering and thinking.

It suddenly worked and I just sort of lit up in the dark. Georgia jerked Ruby awake before I could do anything. "Huh- whats-"

My semblance is anti-stealth. If camouflage could collide with something and destroy itself and become pure energy, it would be my semblance.

She made out the blue blur that must have been me and woke up quick, "is something bad or good happening?"

"I-"

Then I got shot.

I was falling off the horse which was taking off someway. I was going to land flat on my back and my chest stung, too. The Titania plating was more than tough enough to take the bullet through my aura without fear of breaking, but not enough to not hurt.

Pain was important for other reasons, too.

Whoever fired had a friend that also tried to shoot Ruby, but she just burst into petals with a flare of aura and took cover behind a tree. Georgia, pre-spooked, may or may not have taken off in the direction of Indiana.

I'm not sure. My head cracked against a rock hard; hard enough to concuss or kill a normal person, even. I just rolled with it and found a tree to hid behind. I swept my sword from my back and stood with the sword tip down and my body hidden behind the tree.

"Are you hurt?" She wondered. "It wasn't high power, or MA based."

I shook my head. Twelve percent. Maybe ten, based off the discomfort. I peeked my blind and the tree lost a lot of itself in a small explosion of wood. I might have lost a few percent, too. If I wanted to use my semblance, then I'd need to use it before the power faded. Peeking out into the dark again, I saw nothing, however.

"How fast did your semblance activate that time?" She wondered. I guess we were the only ones in danger, so she felt confident enough to chat.

I shook my head. "I think I can charge it."

"Oh, really? That's useful."

"Huh?" I was checking my chest to make sure I really was all good. Sometimes Aura was hard to believe. I glanced over.

"Oh, I just thought you were trying to keep me asleep again?"

"In a gun fight?"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Ready?" She was waiting on my mark. Poised with Crescent Rose ready to snap into place.

I folded my weapon slipping my left arm into the shield and drawing the sword free. I swept out from cover with Ruby, perfectly synchronized. Humans and animals usually responded to audible stimuli faster than visual ones, even still I didn't say anything as I leapt out of cover. Ruby was in perfect harmony with me regardless and she was already prepared to use me as cover to fire out.

We gazed out into the dark in a shower of petals and I held my sword up to extend a soft blue glow. We received no fire and perceived no targets in the dark trees.

We were already mid ambush on this position.

I whipped around in time to be thoroughly jabbed at by three quick stabs of a small and fast dagger. The girl behind it wore a simple tunic and dark olive skin with some visible even darker tattoos.

She slashed at me and I stepped back, trying to make some space. I heard Ruby call out behind me, likely engaging my opponent's friend.

I leveraged my shield between us, but she jumped off it and backflipped above me. I watched the eighteen-centimeter blade in her hands fold inwards like a fan or accordion. She let it roll across her fingers like she was reversing a butterfly knife and its form became that of a jagged pistol.

She shot me twice more as she twirled over me. A confident grin like she'd killed a thousand idiots like me roaring on her face, which may be the case.

I turned around, grabbed Crocea Mors with both hands over my head and whipped it at her. It caught her at the pinnacle of her leap in the center of the blade and it slammed her into the ground nearly ten meters away.

It was immensely satisfying to watch a deep green crackle come over her. It was hard to fake that. I'd done something to another hunter.

I didn't get to soak it in, because it became clear why Ruby was being kept busy while I was keeping up. We were outnumbered.

Ruby shouted out again, something very helpful that I couldn't interpret without our connection. With it, I was able to spin around and meet the butt of a spear. He knocked me back and reversed the weapon.

It was shorter than the longest reach of Crescent Rose. He was also shorter than me by nearly ten centimeters. Maybe more. He was also at least ninety pounds lighter and much less broad across.

I was able to avoid his attack but all it did was force me back into the range of the girl with the green aura in purple. Her light blonde hair was held back into a tight ponytail. To keep it out of her eyes, I imagine.

She had the glow to her that all people with aura had that made them stand out. The hue of her eyes. The shine of the hair. How she backflipped and kicked me in the face before burying her blade at my collar bone.

It bounced off my aura and armor and I heard Ruby call out and the last opponent, a girl in mostly white and brown with pale skin and red hair, flew by. She slammed into a tree next to me hard enough to shake it.

She slumped down with blue aura pouring over her and she lay without moving.

The dude turned around only to eat lead from Ruby's gunfire before she was on him. The purple girl shouted the dude's name and I dashed towards her while she was distracted. I got my shield between us before she could rip any more of my aura out.

She tried to regain her advantage, but it was already lost. She rushed me but I'd had practice with similar ranges of weapons with Ren and even some other people back at Beacon not worth mentioning.

I was ready for her to go low and I predicted her movement with my shield. I slammed it into her face. I took my sword in both hands once she was air-born and lashed out in two hits. The first one knocking her up, the next bashing her out with both hands. I ended it with a shout.

She landed on her back and pushed herself away from me. I watched her land back next to her friend with black hair.

I glanced back. Ruby was dancing circles around the poor guy, out-speeding and out-ranging him. Slowly picking his aura off in large tan chunks.

I rolled my wrist with my weapon over the one with my shield and the two clicked together into the broadsword. I pointed it down at the two girls. The girl with the purple tattoos didn't get the memo and was fumbling for her friend's sword but she only looked up to meet the lowered business end of Crocea Mors.

I clicked my tongue. She met my eyes and must have known I was kidding because after just a moment of consideration, she dropped it.

"Jaune!" I whipped around. Ruby's enemy had left the fight. He abandoned it and ran straight at me, some desperate jailbreak but…

I stepped forward and swung. My semblance… I didn't realize I'd gained it.

"Don't-" Ruby finished her eyes wide.

I stepped back and watched as the boy fell apart.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	8. Hojo I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Stand up!" I ordered "stand up!"

A shivering grown and the mass rose. It was slow to respond, but some response in general was far better than any of the other failures I'd examined.

My mistress was the sort that demanded success and so far I'd had none to show her. Even with the headstart which Merlot's notes had provided, the products of my experiments were, more often than not, nothing more than blood and mayhem.

Merlot was genius, then, somehow guessing the proportion for each enzyme and setting the CRISPR program just right. Merlot had been able renormalize the partial differential equations involved in creating the retroviruses without quantum methods. He deserved to be applauded for his successes, surely.

However, Merlot was a poor scientist.

Merlot's notes were patchwork, often little more than chicken-scratch when he did record a success, though. Further, near as I could tell even after hours of combing through it, Merlot had somehow managed to reuse the same specimen over and over rather than using different genomic templates like my own processes did.

I firmly believed that Merlot's results would have been difficult for he himself to reproduce, let alone for me in my own lab and methods. Not to mention equipment. Merlot liked d-programming language derivatives whereas I used Monty. Fewer error messages.

Merlot had, however, saved dozens of copies of the template's genome from nearly every stage of the process. It was impossible to determine how he had made changes to the target's genome, nor even how total the engineering was to the specimen as a whole, but it was time stamped and it followed a sequence of previous trials all leading in a similar direction.

This would normally have led a clear path forward, especially with another clock, one using mitochondrial DNA for comparison, for example, there was a problem, however.

Ever paranoid, Merlot had only saved the x-chromosomes to the disk I had access too. Honestly it wasn't too much of a problem, and compared to everything else in Merlot's work, forty-five out of forty-six was sufficient.

Or it should have been. This subject, though alive in the technical sense, was blind. It didn't respond to any lights nor objects, though it did react to sound. It was an ideal step forward, I wasn't always able to grow a functional mind.

Not that this was particular functional.

I terminated the experiment. I geastured through a hard light screen and muted it's shrieks.

Functional meant different things to different people. The subject had all it's tactile senses and their derivatives working, I was able to tell as it was terminated. Further based off of how it maintained its shuffling balance as it stood, I could postulate that most of its balance and ambulatory faculties were in working order.

I made a handful of notes, on flimsy. I didn't trust digital copies. I had, after all, designed my fair share of malware and I'd written many papers on cryptography that were widely used. In fact, it was the method that was most commonly used now.

A form of the quantum encryption was used even by mad Merlot.

The problem with quantum encryption before my time was that each cipher had to exactly as long as the message. I had found a solution to the NP problem which I kept unpublished. My own knowledge, unknown even to Salem. It was this that allowed me to develop my encryption methods. A method that even Pietr, despite his accomplishments on the other end of quantum computing, couldn't break.

I could, though. It was like a mathematical gauntlet of old.

I sighed as I made the notes. In my laboratory in Atlas proper, I had access to students. Real students. No computer could replace an inquisitive student. At least none I'd met which weren't themselves curious children.

I had sharp minds to assist me. I even had a protege I wanted to introduce to Salem. I had considered it at least.

In many ways it was like creating my own potential replacement, but the boy was sharp. A mind which, despite that he had had amongst the best tutors, they hadn't managed to dull in the slightest. Intuitive with a certain twisted amorality that Salem would adore.

He was perfect, ideal even for this exact task. I had noticed the way he casually renormalized equations regarding fluid flow. How could I not? In fact, it was at times a challenge to keep the boys talent a mystery from himself, least he slip away from me.

It looked in many ways like a test for me. From Salem herself, in fact. Did she already know about the boy?

Further, he would be of great use… Cinder had even managed it to a degree Salem had found acceptable.

I could do better still.

I shook it off. I needed focus and clarity. Only the best would serve and Salem would know if I had been sloppy.

How could I resolve this? My next experiment was progressing as fast as I could reasonably make it. Rushed science wasn't. Perhaps another solution was needed? But what? The only other person who could help me was Merlot.

Finding Merlot could only speed me along, however. He would have the answers I seek. I opened a holo-screen and made a few fast searches. I had access to a great deal of Ironwood's military hardware, even from here. No system was completely secure. Not even my own mind, Salem had shown me that. That meant that wherever Merlot was, I could find him. Information could not be destroyed, only lost, after all.

I just had to find him. It wasn't as though the idea hadn't crossed my mind or that of my mistress. She sent out seers and I'd dropped my own lures in Ironwood's database. I opened up an old web-crawler and swiftly modified it to breeze through Ironwood's data for mentions of Merlot's name.

If he was out there I would find him and he would answer my questions.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	9. Genkai Wo Koeru III

Killing someone was something new for me. The cold Titania edge glided through first aura then muscle and bone as I swung in a tremendous cross slash. I stumbled with it. I expected to meet resistance, instead I just went through.

I imagined it was cold. I couldn't feel it beyond the padded wrapped handle. The cold night air was constantly drawing warmth from my fingers like a giant heat sink. I actually felt that lessen, as the weapon moved through him. I had so much time to think.

I stumbled through the falling puddle of person. The spine and ribs were splintered and crushed. His upper body rolled around trembling in the gravelly mud and soft grass. His legs twitched behind me on the ground while he shuddered and gasped one horrific choking last.

I was hardly looking at him, I was staring at Ruby and she was gaping down at the body. I flinched, feeling scorched just being so close to the target of her dread. The sheer frost against my soul wilted me in a way that not even my mother's harshest glares could. I wanted to destroy it, but I was the source of it. The cold was me. I turned back to his compatriots.

I knew far better than to underestimate them. Unarmed or not. Woman or man. I'd gotten my ass kicked before.

They panicked when I stepped towards them, which was expected. Big dude, bloody sword, evidently homicidal. Yep.

I took two steps and halted at the sight of the terror on their faces. My emotions were ablaze, roaring in my chest, but my mind was stunned and muted.

Ruby was beside me in a scattering of petals, her hand on my chest. A gentle crimson touch. Her lips were tight but her eyebrows were wide. Bright eyes pleading with me, something desperate in them.

My indignancy over their reaction faded, I mean, they did shoot me. My face, I realized, was twisted into something awful. My skull roared in a way I wasn't super comfortable with, clashing with the feeling of victory I deserved and the rush in veins. My heartbeat hammered in my ears for a terrible moment and I thought the sum of it all would drive me mad if I wasn't already.

My indignancy didn't fade either.

Ruby's gaze was so full of concern that I could barely hold myself together. I swept a hand through my hair, rubbing the whole of my face hard. The motion broke our eye contact and I felt her recede in the direction of our prisoners.

How dare Ruby empathize with a dog like me, honestly? As though something like her could empathize with something like me. The sheer audacity brimming in those eyes made me want to lash out, but against what?

I always meant to kill them; whoever was responsible, that is, but I hadn't wanted to get my hands dirty for real. It was inevitable upon retrospect. I'd need to kill again, too. Probably here soon. That wasn't really what scared me.

I… wanted to, too.

Ruby would understand what had just happened. Any sane person would. However, even the gore and the trauma of shredding a mortal coil with my own two hands didn't actually shrink my rage towards Cinder one iota.

I wanted to do it again.

I wanted to guide Crocea Mors through Cinder Fall's body. I wanted to watch her life fade. I wanted to feel it in my hands when I unwound her. I was hungry for it in a way that kept me up at night with an empty stomach.

That desire to make someone end felt gross. As gross as any of the bodies I had seen or… or made myself, I guess.

The sight of the guy with his staff was far, far easier than having to gaze at Ruby again. If I really felt so bad and gross, then why was I doing it anyway? How could I face her? Could I look at her and say this was an accident and then… then when I made my move, whatever that meant, what could I say?

I wanted to talk to her about it, too. I wanted to tell her how I felt. I wanted to tell her that every single day it ate me a little more.

Surely only she could save me, least I sink, though if she saw what I really was, would she still rescue me?

"Jaune," her soft voice returned me. "Jaune, I need you." I woke up from my stupor.

Ruby and the music were waiting for me to face them. She was right. This was no time to lose focus. Who was to say this trio was alone? They almost certainly weren't.

I focused my disgust and self hatred on the problem at hand. I felt like an ocean that was as still as a lake.

"Look you have no idea who you just killed, alright." The girl with the dark tattoos began.

I blinked, "well yeah. You shot me in the dark."

Silence reigned.

"Well Khagan Branwen isn't the sort to forgive people killing her people."

"Branwen…" I murmured, absently, trying to think.

"What did you just say?" Ruby spun her scythe off her back. The edge, a razor to the waking girl's neck. "What was that name? Branwen who?"

"Branwen, Branwen." The girl insisted. "Raven Branwen."

Ruby's face twisted into something awful. Something like disgust filled her as her nose twisted and she glared downwards. She put a round in the chamber.

"Khagan?" Ruby wondered.

"Branwen as in…" I struggled. "Qrow Branwen?"

Skepticism turned sideways in the kneeling girl's eyes. They flicked from Ruby's weapon up at me. "You know the Khagan's sister?"

"I thought Qrow was a guy," I wondered.

"I uh… I haven't heard it that way." Her eyes shifted.

Unarmed she didn't want to possibly offend us.

"I thought she was Khatun Branwen," Ruby refocused. "No, not anymore, not since the black-out. Maybe before."

"Jaune, uh, a little pow-wow?"

I bent down and grabbed the bandit's pistol. Her eyes followed it, as I collapsed it and slid it into a belt. It was actually well-made. Not Ruby Rose(TM) quality but the way it folded couldn't be cheap.

We stepped back, I matched Ruby's distance away from the prisoner. "Aunt Branwen?" I wondered. She glanced behind me at the captive.

"No. Not Aunt Branwen. She was-ugh- I wanted to

..." She squeezed her hands tight at her side. "She was Dad's first wife."

"Oh."

"She abandoned us after Yang was born. She went here and started a horde of bandits." She snarled. She just spat the words out.

"Um." I just blinked.

"What do I do Jaune?" She reached out and grabbed my shirt.

How in the fuck could I possibly know?

I opened my mouth and stopped. Ruby looked up at me. I felt the tip of something press against my head.

When I got off the ground my head was ringing. I wasn't in a lot of pain. Well scratch that. The inside of my head pounded like an entire xylophone being struck at once over and over.

_Her weapon had had a twin. _

I realized, dazed. It was a sort of black flash when it happened. The point blank shot immediately dropped my aura to red and activated my semblance at the same time. It threw me forward and made me splay against the ground.

I lost sight of Ruby as the force tossed me but I am fairly certain I heard her gun fire again accompanied by the girl's arm twice more. One final crack of Crescent Rose, then there was silence.

I picked myself off the dirt with a groan, but I pulled my weapon into my hands and stood up. "Ruby?" I whipped myself around. I blinked a few times fast. My vision wasn't clearing.

At all.

I rubbed the back of my head, that would leave a bruise. Right above the occipital lobe, too. I really liked that hemisphere, two.

Vague grey shapes I distinguished using aura rather than with any means of light. I felt beyond myself in the ways Ren had showed me. I wasn't one half as good as him. I barely made out colored blurs before me. Mostly red and fading green on the ground but… no distant blue?

I expected a distant blue by the vaguish tree, there was nothing, though. "Jaune? Are you alright?"

"That's a hard maybe?" I gave, squinting. "The prisoner?"

"She's alive. Probably stable." Ruby judged for me.

"The other girl?"

I felt as much as saw the blur turn around. "Gone. A semblance, maybe?"

I nodded. I watched my own power fade, my aura turned to its usual dull grey and yellow, the charge wilted. There was nothing to spend it on and so it left. It took my breath with it as my gauge fell to empty. I felt exhausted and swayed on my feet.

Ruby caught me. My vision completely going. "Ouch," I confessed. "The horses?"

"They'll find us, you goof." She shushed. "I'll set up camp and secure her. Rest for a bit, alright?" I didn't have much choice. My head in her lap and her fingers against my forehead and through my hair and in my scalp was like a narcotic. I couldn't even try.

She cooed, running my hair through her fingers as darkness descended over even those details my eyes made out. "I'm sorry Jaune." She whispered, hands cupping my cheek.


	10. Flower Girl II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

He surprised me, okay? He was faster than I thought. He crossed the distance with a blue flash and a single wide swing. Blonde hair flicking back, blue Sparks filled the air as he rushed in an arcing blur of gold and white. His sword flicked out, pale and yellow and his darker clothes silhouetted him against the night in a flare of cobalt, near violet.

I should have known I couldn't pull off Pyrrha's plan to train Jaune. It had been all about hiding how strong he was from himself until he was ready. It turns out I couldn't do it and everything had backfired tremendously.

Since I'd seen Pyrrha help Jaune with her semblance from afar, I'd been taking notes. Jaune had changed for the better after that. I just kept going with it. He hadn't needed to know how strong he really was out here. It had just been Grimm; so, what was the harm in letting Jaune's power run away from him? It didn't matter if he didn't know his own strength when he was crushing monsters.

It was so clean the way he squished them under his foot.

I hadn't thought…

I hadn't thought.

I remembered back at Beacon when I got my first glimpse of Pyrrha's plan to trick Jaune. Weiss had had to explain to me what polarity was because I was so slow. I thought that if I timed things right I could, well-maybe not replace Pyrrha, but maybe at least I could step in. Fill the gap. Finish the plan.

The next thing I knew he ripped somebody in half. Just like that. My family taught me to control my power and my strength whereas Jaune had no one but me. At the same time I'd just done as best as I could to make him faster and more fearsome. I made him as strong as possible and now look at the mess. It overwhelmed him. It was my fault.

Pyrrha's plan was so carefully set in motion and I hadn't even seen the bandit sneak up behind him and put her gun right next to his head.

He should have died. Nearly anyone else would have, I'm sure. I deserve to have watched him die. Now that he hadn't, though, what could I do?

In the soft light in the tent, I brushed his hair over his bruised scalp. His teeth were clenched in his sleep to the point that I could hear it. The _goofball_. I kissed his forehead and he didn't relax at all or lean into the touch. Instead he flinched oddly and sucked in a breath.

I held my breath with him, paralyzed that he might wake or, much more scary, not wake. I realized I was holding my breath for far to long and exhaled but Jaune didn't. Instead, he choked on nothing with empty lungs but he never regained consciousness. I pleaded with him but his eyes remained clenched shut.

My heart raced with worry and I tied my eyes shut. If Weiss were here, she would know exactly what to do. She had medical knowledge and she knew about aura. Plus she was really good at memorizing and learning.

She always knew the right order in which to do things. I giggled to myself a little, letting relief fill me as Jaune breathed deeply at last.

_Why can't she cook?_

I wondered, feeling dizzy. I watched Jaune pant for air, his face almost purple like the bruse on the back of his head.

Weiss and Pyrrha were so precise and clean and orderly and I was just...

They were so much smarter than me.

I paced out of the tent to our prisoner. She glared at me and you know what? I glared right back. She shot Jaune in the back of the head. She wasn't like Jaune, Jaune had killed on accident. She was a murderess.

Jaune wasn't like that.

Well except for how he talked about Cinder… but that was different because he might be right, I mean, right now, I was struggling to keep this girl under my guard.

Cinder had power. Real power. Jaune wasn't blowing smoke in regards to how many people she could kill and I dreaded taking Cinder as a prisoner. In my head, I can never imagine it going down that way.

The point is that Jaune isn't like that.

"Why don't you just kill me?"

"Jaune will have questions for you." I muttered. "Eat something." Or don't. I only had to give food to the hungry and medicine to the sick. I didn't have to make them take it.

She shuffled. I'd given her a blanket and some other things to stay warm while I waited for Jaune to wake up. She pulled the blanket tighter around her, over her bound ankles.

"Is he going to kill me too?"

"Please." I muttered. "Jaune isn't like that."

"No?" She wondered. She accepted the meal from me with wary eyes. It was just oats and milk. If Jaune was awake he could make something. If Ren was here he could turn it into a feast. She was left with me. "He killed Terran."

"You and your friends were looking for trouble. Jaune was the trouble you happened to find." I defended him.

"Then what are you going to do with me?" She waved her bound wrists at me. "I'm not going to tell you anything. It'll be so much worse for me if I do."

"Worse than Jaune killing you?" I had to wonder. "If you're so afraid of us murdering you, what do you really have to be scared of besides that?"

"Life in the bandit hordes aren't isn't forgiving for traitors." She insisted. "If I tell you anything my Khatun will kill me."

"Raven?"

She shook her head. "Her name is Vernal, and- and- I shouldn't even be telling you that." I watched her bury her face. "She'll kill my friends and then what ill I have?"

"I can help you." I meant it to. I nearly bit my tongue saying it but I would. "Tell me about Vernal."

She shook her head. "Will you at least tell me your name?"

She remained silent. I stood up and growled out. "We'll take you to a prison. I won't let anyone kill you." I stood up and walked back to the tent. If she wanted to try her luck slithering away with tied wrists and no weapon then she was more than welcome to.

"It's Viriscent." She murmured behind me. I pushed into the tent without a word back at her.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	11. Genkai Wo Koeru IV

**So we're starting a new anti-psychotic. Let me know how this goes because last time we switched meds it killed my long fic.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

My dreams were haunted by glimmering amber eyes. In my nightmares I died over and over again, Cinder immolated me, like she'd done to Pyrrha, her eyes full of a malicious humor. I slipped in and out of consciousness as she murdered me; I woke up sweating in my bag only to slip back under again.

Ruby was beside me when I woke up for the first time.

My head was pounding so I groaned and stretched. As I did, she bolted upright next to me. "Jaune! Jaune you're up!" I rubbed the back of my head and she pulled my hand back and her soft hands through my hair.

They were so small.

She rubbed against a large goose-egg just gently enough so that it eased the pain.

Ruby leaned in curious and worried. She rested one of her hands against my chest as she bent close to me in my sleeping bag. I was out of my armor and in some different clothes, I could feel her hand on my chest for real. I would blush but I didn't really have it in me. "How are you feeling…?"

"I'm in pain but…" I had killed someone. My eyes widened as I gazed into Ruby's.

She gaped at my reaction. "Sorry, too, rough?" She pulled her hand back from my head and I moaned at the loss.

I rolled my head around in a circle as I let the noise out. "No, no, it's all me."

"What is?"

"I killed that kid."

"Jaune he made you do it." She threw her arms around my neck. "It wasn't your fault."

"It was." I disagreed. "Ruby I'll kill again."

"Not like them, though." She insisted. "Jaune you are not like them. You are good. You feel so much pain for everyone around you. You regret what happened."

"I don't though." I winced. "I regret that you saw." I managed looking in her eyes. "I didn't want you to see. I knew I would probably have to murder somebody, I just didn't want you to…"

"Jaune I don't think any less of you. It was… I…. I never taught you your strength." She frowned. "It wasn't murder. It was defense."

I snorted.

"It's true," Ruby insisted. "And it's my fault too."

"Please, you were doing everything you could spare his life and I just cut him down." I cut him down like it was sport. I rubbed my eyebrow hard. It was full of course dirt from our travels and I missed the Beacon showers deep in my chest.

I wanted to curl up in one like I had in the early days of Beacon and be forgotten for a while.

She straddled me looking into my eyes. "Jaune it isn't like that. I- do you trust me." Her hands rested one over the other in the middle of my chest. I took both of them in one of mine.

"Yes."

"You're not a bad person." I looked away from the tears the pooled like mercury in the corner of her eyes.

There was no escape from her honesty.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The girl, Virisent, Ruby had extracted her name somehow, was more wary of me than she was of Ruby. I wasn't sure what to make of that. Sure, I was the guy who killed her friend, but when two hunters come into town and one of them is a big two meter guy and the other is a four foot something girl you already know who I'm more afraid of. Of course, there was no reason to let her in on that little source of intuition. That was the first rule of warfare after all. Keep your enemies in the dark.

She didn't need to know that out of the two of us, Ruby was more likely to be able to pull her in half. Of course, out of the two of us, Ruby would never. I might.

I could be motivated, too. "So I'm super curious."

"Yeah?" She had to wonder. I was intentionally being an asshole. Her eyes flicked to Ruby then back to me. "Curious about what?"

"Killing people to lure the monster around; was that your idea?"

"No." She shook her head. I bit my cheek. "It was my Khatun's."

"Yeah, I'm a little hazy on that concept too. That's…" I looked over to Ruby

"It's like… a bandit princess." The prisoner nodded on the ground with Ruby's words. Her purple clothes clashed with the brown and green ground. Sparse grass over dried out, partially frozen, mud.

"And Khagan?" I wondered.

Ruby shrugged. "It sort of means Empress bandit." The prisoner glared at that but said nothing. She visibly bit her cheek on the ground.

"Got it." I managed. I really had no idea how the internal power dynamics between bandits and groups of them were supposed to work. I liked having people I trusted like Ruby around. "Where is the next target?"

She shrugged. "Wherever it wanders to next, I suppose."

"That's so not good enough." I informed her.

She turned her nose up at me. I sighed. "I told you, I won't tell you anything. My Khatun will kill me."

I pulled my sword off my back and clubbed her on the side of the head with the large flat of the blade. I watched it ring her aura. Ruby gasped and stepped towards me. "Jaune!"

"I'll kill you," I told her. "You shot me in the dark twice when you thought you could get away with it. You'll do it again."

She was sprawled out on the ground, unable to rise due to her bound wrists. She slugged away from me briefly before realizing the futility when I crossed the same distance she worked for a few seconds in a single heartbeat. She rolled over and looked at me.

She jerked her head in Ruby's direction. "She said you'd take me to prison."

"I don't know where one is and unless you give me motivation to keep you around, then I won't even take you back to civilization." I looked over at Ruby. "I survived, but I'm not going to wait for you to shoot one of us again." Ruby didn't have my amount of aura. If someone shot her like she did me, she would die. Ruby would be fucking dead. "I'm not taking that risk unless I feel I have to."

I wasn't entirely sure what I would do if Ruby died but I wasn't having a good time thinking about it.

"So…" She wondered.

"So motivate me." I leaned down and grabbed her by the collar. I pulled her into the air with a single arm. With a flex of will, I activated my nearly charged semblance and pressed the tip of Crocea Mors against her stomach. "Who and where is Vernal?"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Vernal evidently could be anywhere. I learned that Khagan Raven's semblance was portals and she just showed up sometimes and took Vernal. This was one of those times. In the meantime, Vernal's gang remained on course, hunting the people of Anima like livestock.

Viriscent hadn't been able to give me the location of their camp either. Unwilling perhaps, but as she explained it the camp was constantly moving and should be in mid rotation. I tied her up and threw her over a horse and blindfolded her.

Yee-haw.

Who was Vernal was a bit more interesting. She used a series of hooked blades and Viriscent hadn't revealed the girl's semblance to me. Perhaps she herself didn't know it but perhaps not. We at least had a name to go with our distant enemy.

"So what does it feel like? Does it-like-feel good?"

"Huh?" Ruby's question caught me off guard as we rode together.

"Your semblance." She clarified for my addled brain, smiling back at me. Something like relief in my usual response in her gleaming eyes but I knew she was worried.

I thought about it. "I'm not sure. I haven't been able to spend it outside of a real fight where I wasn't burning or being shot."

She nodded. "It's like that sometimes. How do you feel when it's active?" It was pretty transparent she was trying to destract me from my murder. It was working a little. She pushed her hair behind her ear as she spoke and I was forced to stare at her and shake my head.

"It's hard to say. It's a bit of a rush you know? Then it builds up and releases."

"You make it sound like-"

"Enough out of you." She giggled at me but I had to wonder, "what does it feel like for you? When you fly apart?"

"Is like my head is finally clear and I can stop thinking about all my real problems." She sighed. "Sometimes I wish I could spend all my time as petals."

I nodded along.

"Is that worrying?"

"Not really. Sometimes I wish I could leave and just hang out with you, so…"

"That's worrying, Jaune. When you say things like that I worry about you."

"Sorry."

Her eyes narrowed. "Sorry for what specifically? Sorry for feeling that way?" She scoffed. "Sorry for telling me? You need to tell me what you feel."

"You want me to tell you more?" I had to wonder. It was unusual for someone to actually wonder about me.

"More." She purred. "You goofball. When are you going to tell me more about you?"

"I thought I made it clear I wanted you to like me."

"You did and I do like you. That's not going to change if you tell me more about you."

"I can't really think of thinking." I hummed holding my chin. "I always wanted to be a huntsman and attend Beacon. Now that that's gone all I really want to do is help you."

"Why me?"

I shrugged. "You're special like that."

"I'm not special. I'm normal."

"No one who has ever met you believes that, there's something immediately special about you Ruby. You're visibly diagnosable as special." I thought about what I just said. "Wait not like that. I meant how you're a good person."

She laughed at me. "I don't think you'd say something hurtful Jaune, just easy to misunderstand." She hesitated. "So it surprised me when you hurt her." I was hoping she'd let that slip on account of the Grimm worship but that was just too much.

I didn't have to think hard about what she meant. "Ruby I cannot… if you were shot…" I sniffed hard and Ruby watched me rub my eyes. Tears threatened me. "I can't do it again. If you die, I can't do it again."

She frowned looking at me.

"Seriously what would I do if you died."

"You think you're for me?" She wondered.

"I'd like to be."

"That's scarier than it is sweet."

"You said you wanted to know more."

"What else is there?"

"I'm not sure. I can't remember it all at once. Plus I don't want to think about it all the time. Can you blame me?"

She shook her head so gently the the tips of her hair barely moved before her eyes. "How's your head feel Jaune?"

"Throbbing but much better than it would be. Trust when I say you help me Ruby."

"We'll get to that Jaune. We'll see how much I help for real." She turned back to ride in silence and I let her. She pursed her lips in thought and lightly tapped with with her finger. "We'll see if I help anyone for real."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Taking care of one other person wasn't the absolute worst. Sure we had to watch her all the time and give her our food. So it did actually suck. Considering she'd shot me in the head and I was now making her breakfast.

"He can cook."

"He sure can."

"I scramble eggs." I insisted when Ruby rose to almost brag about it. "I'm not exactly Jorgon Ramsey."

"I suppose with seven sisters you'd learn a thing or too." She trailed off teasingly.

"Look, these things happen. I also know how to braid hair or put it into ponytails." Ruby smirked. "Seven. Ruby. Seven of them. I never had a chance."

"I should have let you two kill me."

"Don't be a spoilsport. We're not so bad." I let her bindings off. Her eyes flicked to where her pistol was still in my belt. I wanted to say something about it but if someone had Crocea Mors that close to me I would be unnerved too. She didn't make a move, though, so I really had nothing to say.

"You did beat me."

"You did shoot me. Plus I doubt if you would have beaten us, you would be kind enough to keep giving us meals."

"You didn't want to give me any food. She convinced you."

"Yes. Remind me."

Silence for a beat.

"Where are you taking me next." She wondered between less stubborn bites.

Ruby slapped me across the chest with our map. "The next place is Oniyuri. It's supposed to be large enough that it probably has a place we can keep her. Hand her over to some real authority."

"I'm right here." I ignored.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Oniyuri was a ghost town.

Ruby took the lead bouncing up until she stood on horseback and peered out at grey walls. The buildings looked dilapidated, as did the fence now that I thought about it. I checked the map. "That's strange."

"Another destroyed town?" Ruby wondered.

"We should search for survivors." I stowed the map and took off.

"Don't leave me in the dark!" Our blindfolded prisoner shouted.

I sprinted towards the circle shaped opening in the walls. Ruby made it there first and in a single great leap no normal woman could pull off, she landed antop of the walls. She bounced from there to a watch tower which had no platform to stand on from which one could watch.

I checked and found nothing. Ruby dropped down, her legs easily taking the thirty foot fall. She lifted the platform in question from where it lay beside the tower on the ground, checking under it. "Anything?" She called out.

"Nothing."

"No."

"Clear over here." I moved from the building I'd been checking. "The place seems abandoned."

"Hey I found something!" Ruby called out to me. She brushed aside leaves where a small sign had been overgrown. "Oniyuri," she read. "This is it? What happened?" Ruby wondered, her voice coming out small in the courtyard.

Grimm claw marks on what was left of a door. Shattered windows and broken down walls.

I didn't hesitate, it was time to get moving. "Come on, lets push through here." I mustered, sticking around so much negativity wasn't going to serve us any.

My hand rosze to my weapon, pulling at the hilt slightly. Nervously. I felt something. I wasn't alone in it, either. Ruby peered ahead through the scope of Crescent Rose.

A man in brown and white flipped into the courtyard, landing neatly with a bowed posture.

The man said nothing but his hands flicked out claw like weapons drawing on either hand. Without a word he blitzed towards us, no straight towards _Ruby,_ with a manic laugh.

Ruby intercepted him first, lashing out like an insane tornado. The man danced back, giving ground easily.

Ruby snapped a kick out and followed it with a spray of bullets. She twisted and he ducked under the massive swing before raising his arm and stepping inside her guard. A clawed hand lashed out and Ruby had to lean far out of the way to dodge it. She gave a gasp as she did. Put on the defensive, a swift kick from the clawed man forced her back. The man went high but kicked low again, Ruby ate the attack with a grunt.

The man laughed like he was in hysterics all the while. He whipped out the blades on his forearms, Ruby blocked them with Crescent Rose but didn't block a jump kick which caught her center of mass. She rolled back but the man had speed to spare, he was able to catch up to her.

He crossed both arms, scissor slashing at her but she caught the blow against the barrel of her weapon. A high crescent kick lashed out at Ruby followed by a jab. She rotated Crescent Rose to block but the man was within her range and didn't miss with the brutal shoulder check that flicked her to the ground.

I was there to cover Ruby immediately. The man slid beneath my slash and bounced up at me, landing on the edges of the shield. The man peered down at me with a wide grin. I glared up at the man, and I swung the man back and Ruby hit him hard with Crescent Rose, clipping him.

He launched back through a white wall, cartwheeling through the air. His yellow eyes glowed out at us from the building. Ruby got back to her feet preparing Crescent Rose for a second assault.

"We're not looking for a fight!" I called to him.

_Though you've found one by attacking Ruby._

"Who are you?" Ruby wondered.

The man flipped down. "Who I am matters not to you, or- well I am curious about you." He ended looking at me.

"Not interested," I returned.

"No?" The man continued, he seemed to take it in stride. "Well, I suppose I only really matter to you." He pointed behind my tank at the backline Ruby. I didn't so much as take my eyes off the man.

"Me?" Ruby wondered.

The man broke down laughing. "You really don't have the slightest clue, do you? Oh how exciting this must be." That laugh was really getting on my nerves.

"What do you want?" Ruby demanded.

"Oh the rose has thorns. My little flower, I'm here to whisk you away with me."

"And what if she doesn't want to go with you."

"Well, I'll take her." He made it sound so obvious. Like getting through and killing me would be the most straightforward thing in the world. The way he'd danced around us so far… the fight didn't look promising.

"Yeah, you can take her. Over my dead body," shield at the ready and sword poised to strike from behind it.

"_Perfect_," The man purred.

I blinked and the man was _gone._ My eyes traced his outline but...

"Jaune!" Ruby called out to me in warning. I felt the danger from behind me. Ruby immediately opened fire, trusting my aura, armor, and shield to see me through. I began to turn around towards the blindingly fast opponent.

The man had to duck under Ruby's fire, unable or unwilling to press his attack and eat the bullets with his aura. The man bounced in the air, spinning like a top of my shield. I threw him off. Pressing my attack with a shout.

The man turned it into an elegant flip and kicked Ruby so hard she flew off her feet. I swept his sword at him. Trying to catch him off guard but the man cartwelled under the attack.

_Too telegraphed. _

His heel came down on my head, a cry of pain left my lips before I could stop it followed closely by a second one as I was swiftly side kicked in the face. I fell backwards and their aggressor charged at Ruby again, unrelenting.

My semblance activated, struming through me like a cord, I dashed forward and Ruby did too, we scissored him and I spent my semblance now faster than ever, as soon as I got it, really.

I bunkered behind my shield, waiting out the shockwave Ruby's speed and my attack had created. When I peeked. Our opponent was still standing. He'd… caught my attack with his tail. A long brown scorpion's tail which protruded from his lower back and a deep gash in his aura from where Ruby pounced.

Now she stalked around the outside of a wide circle with him and I in the center, waiting for the right moment to strike like a wolf.

The man giggled. "Surprise." He kicked off the ground and then towards me. He kicked me twice, brutal kicks seemed to be the man's style in conjunction with his claws.

"What is this about?" Ruby stepped forward. "The White Fang? Roman Torchwick?"

"Plastic soldiers and pawns. My heart and body belong only to our goddess." The scorpion took an arrogant bow.

"Cinder." Ruby murmured. Her eyes narrowed up at him.

_The bitch herself._

"Hm. Only in her wildest dreams!" With that the man launched towards us again, kicking off the roof he was on hard enough to splinter it. His tail whipped out at Ruby. She deflected it but a brutal punch knocked her down again.

I sidestepped the tail twice but not the following kick to the back. I tried to rush him, trying to flank him but the man's foot colliding with my shield stopped my approach. Against this opponent the shield was just getting in the way. I slid the sword into the shield and slid it off my arm, drawing the massive sword from it.

M foe was fast enough to get in on me but hopefully with a little range and a little luck...

The blade clicked into place, the simple mechanism snapping into position easily. The blade was enormously heavy compared to the bastard sword I'd been weilding, I gripped it in both hands to steady it. I wasn't sure I'd be fast enough to catch the man with it, but I'd promised I'd die before I let this creep take Ruby and damnit I would.

I dashed forward but my opponent dashed away from him towards Ruby. He punched her twice with the brutal blades and flicked her into the air. With blinding speed, the man was already where Ruby was going to land, he wound up and comboed a kick to her stomach.

I could see her aura break in a radial pattern from the foot.

"Ruby!" I shouted.

The man glanced up at my charge, his eyes widening in surprise for a brief satisfying moment before I caught him center of mass with the broadsword. I started by drawing an 'x' in the air. The glow of my sword stayed where it struck him, holding him in place.

Next I carved a shallow 'L,' low and then rising. I watched him stuck in place still, like he was in butter or stuck in slow motion.

I finished with a tremendous slash all the way through the patterns I had drawn which shown through the air.

I watched a crackle of purple sweep out across his torso from where the sword impacted him. You can't fake that. One hundred pounds of brutal steel impacting him had hurt him. I held Crocea Mors steady in one hand. Steady, easily, even with just the one arm.

It was light. I swung it casually across his body and back towards neutral, glaring at the man.

"Jaune!"

"Stay down Ruby!"

I began to charge the next one.

I watched the man roll across the ground before he stopped, catching himself with the hooked blades. He let out a viscous sound, part snarl, part laugh. He scuttled towards me, low towards the ground but…

I met him in the middle and Ruby shot him in the face. I refused to give ground and allow the lunatic to get any closer to Ruby. Crocea Mors swept forward but was deflected off the man's right wrist blade. I reversed the blade, bringing it around his body and back down.

My foe grunted catching the blade again with both wrists.

_The tail…_

I leaned out of the way as the tail lashed through his space. It whipped from over the man's head towards me but I'd seen it coming. The man was getting predictable. Plus with six feet of metal between them, I was outside his range. I brought my blade down towards the tail and the man reared back, giving ground and watching me warily.

I didn't let up. He jumped, raising Crocea Mors over his head in a tremendous arc and brought it down against the man again. The man braced his tail and blades against the attack but three hundred pounds of man and metal bore down on him. I watched as the man's feet sunk into the cobbled ground, aura sparking from here his tail braced against the blade.

Believing he saw an opportunity the man rushed me, closing the distance that my long arms and sword provided. I lashed out with a low kick, unable to bring the blade to bear in time. It connected against the side of the man's knee. I threw my weight into another kick with the other leg, a round kick which impacted the man's gut.

My jab and follow up brought him the space I needed to bring Crocea Mors around in a low flat arc. It sung through the air with thick satisfying noise, but not nearly as satisfying as the sound the blade made against the man's aura.

_I need to end this now._

I rushed the man who was sent rolling by the combo.

I screamed out a battle cry, trying to land a decisive blow. I rushed forward with all my might and thrusted Crocea Mors forward. The man slipped to the side, dodging by a fraction of a hair. He followed it with two brutal kicks and three jabs into my chest. Then he sank his hooked gauntlet into my stomach.

I grunted. It wasn't so bad.

I spat up some blood and looked down.

It was pretty bad. The worst, even.

"Jaune!"

"What's the matter?" The man mocked. "Run out of power? Or do you have another one in you?" Tyrian twisted his fist and the blade sank further into my stomach. The tail came around and hovered just before my face. Giggling and wiggling the tail right in front of my mouth before it vanished, the pressure disappearing from me accompanied by an agonized howl.

"Jaune, oh lord stay with me!"

I didn't.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	12. Spring Deva I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Keep walking." I ordered.

My prisoner managed to sarcastically rattle his chains at me so I stabbed him in the back. "Easy, easy." He said in a low scratchy voice.

"You're lucky you're the Khatun's brother." I murmured. "Or I would crush you." I didn't have a choice in killing him, really. He'd walked into camp and handed one of my people over, claiming to have saved her life and near as I could tell he wasn't lying. I actually owed him. Imagine that thought, now vomit.

He just rattled them again. If he was anything like the Khatun, he could break them. His aura wasn't disabled for all that I had his weapon. His semblance wasn't a mystery to me, either. So I felt no safer possessing his weapon than I really did if he had it. However he had returned Garnet unharmed to me. I did owe him and the Khagan would be interested in this catch if nothing else.

None of the other Khatuns respected me. It was my age, I reckoned. I was at least ten years younger than the next youngest person. No one brought it up because in distant third for youngest was the Khagan, herself.

I paced through Raven's camp and no one bothered me in the slightest, however. The camp was enormous, much larger than mine. It was built in a handful of days and it could be torn down and rebuilt just as quickly. Really it was large because Raven was here, soon she would fly to another camp and the Khatun there would be happy to entertain her.

A boy flipped a knife outside of a tent. Moans could be heard from inside but it was none of my business.

None of them bothered me. They were also afraid of my skills. I was nineteen and already I was the Khagan's personal favorite errand girl.

I was her errand girl, too.

It wasn't much of an insult. Everyone at her table ran errands for The Khatun. She kept me close, though, trained me personally. Handpicked me. That was something different; something special. There were those at her table that knew the Khagan hadn't even trained her own daughter. Raven had left the life of a peasant huntress behind and became the empress. Her daughter, daughter by blood made rather than by blood spilled was killed or abandoned. She wasn't important, though.

I pushed my way into her tent. It had no guards, who would guard Raven? Nothing here threatened her.

The Khagan had an eye for talent and fostering that talent. To all appearances it looked like I was next in line. The cream of the crop out of thousands of bandits from across Anima.

I wasn't the only such talent, or at the very least, I wasn't the only person who had caught Khatun Branwen's eye. At the outskirts of this tent, if a palace like this could be called a tent, were monks and scholars. These were people that Raven coerced, convinced, or outright kidnapped to suit her needs.

I wasn't like them. I had found Raven. Wounded her for real in battle. Rather than kill me she'd spared me. She gave me power, weapons, dust, and even people to command. She'd broken me, of course, but that was the nature of things.

Now some of my men were missing and I had little choice but to ask for permission to go after the fools that had dared touch my things. I had to do it right though. There would be punishment for acting without orders, even for favorite pets like me.

When I shoved my way into the tent Raven's attention never wavered to me. It snapped immediately to her brother's face. "Qrow."

"Sis."

"We have a lot to talk about." Qrow began.

"Do we?" Raven wondered, a hand on her chin.

"We do. Do you want your help here for it?" He rattled at me again.

I wsn't sure who the fuck he thought he was making actual demands of the Khatun, but she seemed content to allow it, if only to bother him later. It wasn't for me to go prying. I would stab him with his own sword if she asked but I wanted to leave it alone. Well, wanted was a strong word. Besides...

"Vernal can stay."

Besides Raven trusted me.

"Vernal." Qrow sighed. "Her name is Vernal? Are you fucking serious?" I glared at him. Sure it wasn't my real name but I still took some offense.

"So what do you want Qrow?"

"Maybe I wanted to catch up?"

"Maybe you could get on with it. I'm always busy." Raven glanced sideways through a portal. Spying on somebody somewhere.

"Look Raven there are things I know that you want to know and things you know that I want to know, if we skip the game, we get what we want, you even get to go first."

"Very well." Raven decided. Closing her portal by geasturing. "Does she have the relic at Beacon or not."

"No." Qrow answered. "Did you know that Yang lost her arm?"

"I did," Raven purred. I couldn't help the smile that ran across my face. "She was too slow and too weak. Maybe the prosthetic and the lesson will be good for her. Qrow, where is the fall maiden?"

"I don't know." Qrow sighed. Raven tilted her head at him. "I don't. Nothing you can do will change that one. Where is the spring maiden."

"I have her, and that's the way things are going to stay. Where are the other maidens?"

"I don't know. It's been a real fun chat though I think-"

"I think, Qrow that you don't know anything and until that changes you're going to stay here with me too. Do try and remember something useful."

"Come on. You don't want me as a prisoner. You don't want me anywhere near you for real, do you?"

It was rhetorical. Even I knew about his semblance. Being near him and keeping him prisoner was waiting for disaster. Inviting something that actively drew misfortune into the heart of your base was anything but wise. Raven would want him gone.

In comparison, Raven kept live Grimm as stock and entertainment. Qrow would be neither and would only endanger everything.

"Fine, tell me where the other Relics still remain and I let you leave. Tell me where the winter maiden is too, and I'll let you leave with your weapon."

Qrow reached down and took a deep drink of some depressant. "You drive a hard bargain."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	13. Where the Trains Go I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was, for the record, not tired of waking up with Ruby taking care of me. I was not. I was tired of being shot and stabbed, but not the rest of it. The rest of it was awesome.

I was in a real bed as opposed to our tent this time. Ruby was in the bed next to me and she stirred slightly in her sleep where she clutched my arm. I sighed looking at her. Fuck she was dangerous.

I started to sit up. Poking at the bandages and stitches in my chest, I winced a little. She stirred with me, her eyes blinking open as I rose.

"Don't touch it!" She shouted-whispered as I twirled a sitch and gasped. Oh yeah, none of that analgesic stuff. What as I? A pussy?

I almost passed out from the pain, though. My vision tunneled and I swayed back into the pillow.

The blades left deep marks which even my armor and aura wouldn't prevent from forming scars. She shoved my hands out of the way and placed her own there instead. "Does it hurt?"

I groaned. Her fingers were cool and my chest felt inflamed.

I was lucky he hadn't decided to open fire with the weapon point blank. That would have turned my torso to hamburger and I doubt whoever Ruby found to put me back together could handle that much gut-shot.

Not because they were a bad surgeon. It would have probably just have been super lethal.

I nodded. "I'm not super comfortable." I confessed. "What happened?"

"I cut his tail off while you had him, uh, distracted." Ruby said with some venom. "He ran off but there's no way that he'll be recovering without help and I sent word out once we arrived."

"And our prisoner?"

She tapped the tips of her pointer fingers together. "I had to let her go. I needed the speed to get you here." She sounded like I was going to be upset with her over it. Over saving my life.

"Which is?" I wondered.

"Higanbana."

"Thank you. Ruby. You saved me again."

Silence met me before…"I put you in danger. Didn't you hear him?"

"I heard him laugh. He was nuts Ruby."

"He was here for me."

"So am I."

"Butt! Stop being sweet for a second and listen to me!" She sighed. "He worked for whoever Cinder is actually working for. This is serious business."

"Ruby, these people were always your enemy." She chewed her lip. "That makes them my enemies, too. Plus Cinders friends are absolutely against us. Nothing is changed except we know one of their faces."

"I suppose…except he didn't work for Cinder. He works for someone else."

"And I don't work for Ozpin. Just you. A different beast is all, Rubes."

"He was a monster." I nodded along. He was, that Tyrian. He could have killed me but he was having too much fun torturing me.

I was ever so grateful. "Let's stop him next time."

"Do you really think we can?" I nodded. He hadn't been invincible.

"He took us by surprise and we don't have any real team attacks which use both of our semblances. Speaking of, did you catch his semblance?"

She shook her head. "He never used it. I'd recognize his weapons though. I gave the village a description but…"

If they weren't hunters or had a hunter's mindset they might not really get why.

"Sounds like you took care of everything."

"Right. So you just rest now. You worked so hard for me. Let me look after you for a bit."

What? Had she missed the last few months of constantly saving my life? Her lips pressed softly against my cheek and then she moved them against my lips and she sighed a little next to me.

I felt her relax next to me on the bed and wrap her arms around me gently. I couldn't help but unwind either. Muscles ached and bruised throbbed but I hardly felt either as I slowly let her pull me back down.

I found my anesthesia when she slipped her tongue into my mouth and one of us moaned softly. She smirked and I knew it must have been me. Her lips turned up against mine. She was having a little fun taking care of me and who was I to take that from her.

She pulled back suddenly. "Jaune there's been something I've been meaning to tell you. It's about my eyes."

"Okay." I'd seen them, they were fantastic. "What about them?"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Have you ever really tried to relax. I mean to squeeze all the relaxation you could out of a time period and just let the people who profess to care about you look after you while you heal and rest and try and figure things out. What an unbelievable nightmare.

I could not for the life of me sit still. I was going stir-crazy in 'safe' Higanbana. I was just supposed to let Ruby handle things and try and focus on just getting better but in the end I found myself pacing the small hotel room and narrow city streets over and over again.

And Higanbana was for the most part truly safe. It had high walls and guards with good discipline. Some of them even had their aura unlocked. It was maddening.

My only saving grace was Ruby who had the energy to keep me from being bored out of my skull. She even asked me one early morning with bright eyes and a finger to her lips, "Jaune?"

"Mhm." I wondered. Her voice at a certain timber that made me want to reach out and grab her.

"Can we go on a date?" She finished. She could have asked me to stab myself with that tone and expression and I would have. A date though.

A date.

A date. Of course. We were a couple after all. She would want that kind of thing. But what would that kind of thing look like.

It looked like me listening to her gush about my semblance and weapons over ice cream which she fed me, because I was hurt.

"You're semblance is actually wild Jaune. Really."

"Really really?"

"Just imagine how you can force your enemy into some of your traps."

"My traps?"

"Please, it's how you fight. You make people think they're safe and then you surprise them. That was true even before your semblance."

"I do?"

She nodded, glowing as we walked through a park together. She had loved the idea of enlightening the guards with aura and had taken to doing three or so a day while I healed. I wanted to step in and do more but she shut me down.

We found a small place which sold these little treats with sherbert in them. Ruby chiperly ordered for both of us while I just watched her move and talk.

We took a rest together, over the next few days it was some of my favorite times, just scrolling through the Animatic courtyards and gardens in public places.

"Plus you are always forcing the enemy to approach you or you'll be even harder to deal with. You don't need a gun if you can fight like that either. Though…"

"I don't like guns."

"You have hers still." I looked down. I still had Viriscient's gun. I pulled it from a belt and handed it to her.

"Here. You take it."

"Why me?"

"You'll get more out of a sidearm than I will." I returned with a shrug.

"Still…" she took it anyways and looked at it both ways before flicking it apart. She quickly took a look at the internal mechanisms and hardly turned her nose up at it. "It is nice… is it really okay to use it? I mean it was a bandit's."

"If its by you than its not a bandit's anymore." I shrugged. "You could always take it apart and see how it works.

"I think I'll keep it then." She smirked. "Also, implying I can't tell how it works."

"You're right I should know better." I earned a quick cold kiss for that, ice cream still on her ruby lips.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Ren and Nora were waiting for us back in GaiLong. Nora raced out and hugged me with surprising gentleness. Despite my promise I was a few days late. "What happened to you?" Nora had to wonder. I was bandaged but able to walk enough to make it from Higanbana.

"Scorpion dude. Like the woman who killed Pyrrha, we'll talk later," I rapid fired. "I don't suppose you managed to kill the monster in the last few weeks, we never saw it ourselves." I gripped Ren's arm and pulled him into a hug.

Ren shook his head withdrawing from my embrace. His eyes never left my bandaged chest. "No, we never encountered it. However, we learned of the existence of bandit hordes. Groups led by Khans. Then we came across several dens."

"I thought they were Khatuns?" I had to wonder, surprising Ren.

"They're the same thing," he explained. "You fought them?"

I nodded and Ruby answered. "There was a small group of them. They were unrelated to - uh" she gestured at me, "this."

"Thanks Rubes."

"Well… unless you count when one of them shot him in the back of the head."

I rubbed the spot in question. "A lot's happened." but then again not that much. We'd accomplished little.

"You were shot?" Ren wondered.

Nora leaned in. "You were stabbed!"

"Yeah. I was shot and stabbed."

"You know if you had a gun…"

"Nora…" I sighed. "I don't like guns."

Ruby gave a soft sigh, falling back from beside me. "Haven is a lot further than I thought, plus we've made almost no progress on the bandits."

"Ruby," Ren got her attention. "How long did you think this was going to take?"

"I don't know, okay." She waved her arms. "I grew up in a small area, I've never been this far from home."

"Right." I agreed. "But how long."

"Maybe like-uh two weeks," she endeavored.

"What?" I exclaimed. I was planning this multi-month campaign against her enemies and she really didn't have any idea of the time frame. I breathed, taking a step back, Ruby's eyes were wide like I was going to snap at her. I wasn't. I was on her time table. It made no difference to me whether she wanted to take two weeks or two months or even a year. "Ruby we haven't even found the Knuckleavee, let alone the bandits, this Vernal."

"Vernal is…?" Nora cut in.

"Khatun Vernal is an enemy. She's using human sacrifices to lure the Grimm around. She's a genius."

"She's a monster." Ruby emphasized at the same time I called her a genius. I raised my hands in surrender.

"I only meant so far as she was a monster." Ruby's nostrils un-narrowed at me. "At any rate we have no idea where she is. We had a prisoner from her gang but she's gone now."

"The real question is why we weren't told about the bandit groups. The leaders should have known about them." Ren interjected. "They left us out to dry."

"Not really. We should have known. We need to consider awakening some of his men, but now…" I trailed. I didn't trust him any more than before despite my attempts to reassure Ren.

Rendezvous with my friends didn't last long enough, guards were fast to take me back into the heart of the city to talk to Beifhing. There was work to be done again and Beifhing needed my attention as much as anything did. Ruby lost confidence in her ability to make the right decisions here and passed it along to me in quiet whispers.

"No, no you do it," she murmured.

She really needed to stop that. She was so smart.

Beifhing greeted me like an old friend. Not that I had much experience being greeted by old friends to compare to, but he- well- he was friendly enough to make me feel bad. Not enough to actually start trusting him, though, nothing crazy.

"Arc-San, I am relieved to see you alive."

I nodded along. "Not always so lucky with your huntsmen." He frowned at me, shaking one of my hands in both of his, stopping mid shake at my words.

"Too many young kids." He murmured. "Come in, we must talk."

I told him about the bandit tribes and the disappearance of other villages. His response shocked me, however. "Evacuation may be our only choice."

"Are you nuts?"

"Arc-san don't you remember when you yourself brought up evacuation."

"As a bad idea. As a bad bad idea."

"Surely if you awaken some of my men and you yourself helps us we can evacuate all the way to Mistral."

I frowned considering it. Did he not see my wounds or was he just being polite. I was really in no shape to defend anyone, especially myself and I really wasn't comfortable splitting my party again. I regretted doing that almost as soon as I did it. I still wasn't sure if he was trying to kill me.

"How would we evacuate?" I played along.

"Well, the current plan would be to use the trains." The fucking what? "Bandits destroyed the rails but we've been repairing them for months now. We think it may be time to abandon GaiLong and use them to set up new safer lives in Mistral."

As though I had a choice. Ruby would be all for the idea, if that's what the people wanted. All of the people. "There must be a faction of you that you can't convince to leave." It was a statistics game. Not everyone would want to go. Some group would be content to take advantage of the open houses here. "Plus the panic. You need to give me more time. I can beat this 'Vernal' and the monster."

"Do you have a new plan?"

"I"m going to use myself in my current condition as bait." Not really. I was going to use Ruby's concern for me. It was cruel. I deserved to suffer for the idea and I would. I was. I would just self harm on the road and let their worry call the monster.

"We have a plan Arc-San. There is a wedding in two days time."

"A wedding you say…"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	14. Where the Trains Go II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Nora was all over me in a pinwheel of hammer and raw force. I blocked and redirected her massive attacks, giving ground all the while and stepping back to get brief charges of my semblance in. I wasn't sure how effective this hit and run strategy I was working on was but there really was no way to know until I activated my semblance.

It arrived with the usual whoosh and I bashed Nora across the face with Crocea Mors and she whipped back at me with a large grin. "Ruby's right. It does make you stronger, but does it make you strong enough for this?"

She rotated the hammer over her head and I stepped back, giving her space before the hammer clipped me on the side. I winced, in more pain than the blow would have indicated normally, irritating my wounds was a must, however.

I shut down Nora's worried look by spending the charge right in her face. The five hit combo right into her gut knocked her back, bouncing across bricks. She was the only one in the group I felt comfortable using that kind of attack against in sparring. Ruby was made of paper-mache and Ren was a lightweight, too.

Nora on the other hand could really take the hit.

I checked her aura gauge. Maybe Ruby was right, maybe my own strength was a mystery to me.

She flipped back to her feet rushing me with the hammer but suddenly, without limit, I swayed on my feet, clutching my side. I held up a single hand and her steps stuttered to a stop.

"You're not just charging your semblance, are you?" I glared at her. "Good because that's funny nonce."

I panted hard and glared some more.

Ruby had been watching the fight unfold and walked up to me. She handed me a bottle of water and as she swung past me she kissed my cheek in crimson flash. Her eyes glowed and a small blush marked her cheeks before she vanished in a small blur.

"So you and Ruby, huh?" As though she didn't know. The two of them had shared a room last night. What secrets had they shared? A total mystery.

"Yeah, me and Ruby." My voice had more confidence than I felt.

"How'd that happen?"

"She got tired of waiting for me and made a move." Nora looked down and rubbed her right arm with her left arm sheepishly.

"It's not that easy."

"It actually might be."

"What if he's not into me."

"Nora you're his whole world."

"He needs to say it." She said sticking one hand on her hip. "Not you."

"So you two haven't done anything?"

"No we totally have, it's just not like that, or like what you have."

"That's not what I meant. Just… don't wait too long." I let a little agony creep into my voice. "You really really don't want to wait too long." It wasn't pain from my abdomen.

She opened her mouth but I found a place to sit and plopped down, clutching my sides with a hiss.

"Was it a good idea for us to fight?"

"I need to stay fit and get used to the semblance and sword. You took it easy enough on me."

"You're hurting though. Also you didn't take it easy on me. What was that?"

"I was hurting before we started, though."

"Oh that makes it okay then." Sarcasm leaked through. She aggressively ruffled my hair. "You need to look after yourself."

"I've got you guys to help with that."

"What are you going to do when we're not around?"

"I'll muddle through."

Ren approached us, looking us both up and down thoroughly and distantly. His eyes lingered on me and for a moment I thought he saw right through me. His eyes nearly narrowed and with his semblance I couldn't really put how much he saw past him. He was the strongest empath on our team for a reason.

"So that's your semblance, it's very you." Ren murmured. "I had wondered when it would manifest."

"Do you have a name for it?" Nora wondered.

"Do you really need to have a name for it?" I wondered. "It's just a semblance."

"Just a semblance!" Nora exclaimed. "Of course it needs a name! Do you have a name?" She wondered rhetorically.

"Nora calls her's high voltage. Mine of course is called tranquility. Ruby's probably has a name like scatter or something. Fallen petals or some such."

"How about Summit Supremium Smash?" Nora went with.

"A bit of a mouthful, isn't it." I tried.

"Boundless bash," she whispered.

"Something shorter, then, like Limit Breaker." Ren continued.

"Limit Break sounds fine." I settled before some worse option could present itself. "Let's call it Limit Break."

"How are you feeling Jaune"

"I'm hurt but I'm getting through it." I needed a distraction. "How's enlightening Beifhing's men going."

"All done!" Nora spouted flexing. "All of the king's men are ready for battle."

I sighed. I felt better leaving the village again if the guards had aura and the power to defend themselves against the Grimm. Of course enlightening so many people posed its own dangers but the Knuckleavee and the danger presented by Vernal was just too much. We couldn't be everywhere. We couldn't stay forever. There was a certain compromise there.

The fact was when you handed out tickets to the superpower lottery, someone might win. Example: Raven fucking Branwen who united half a continent worth of bandits in terror.

It was also much faster and safer for us as a group rather than Ruby doing it by herself in Higanbana.

I twisted and turned my torso, stretching my stitches to aggravate the wounds. Ren winced next to me and looked me over again. He said nothing though but he met my eyes in certain suspicious silence.

"You feel up for sparring with me?" Ren wondered. I panted a moment longer before I nodded. We were gathering a bit of an audience in the small courtyard. I few young children and some older kids coming out to watch the hunters practice.

"Don't hit him with that move!" Nora called. "The one you hit me with. Does it have a name?"

"Why would my moves have names if my semblance didn't?"

"Everyone has signature moves." Ruby explained. She was back in a blur and plopped down beside Nora with a drink. "Yang likes jab, left body shot, left head hook, right cross. She favors ending everything with a cross, regardless of her stance."

"So my moves need names?"

"Well sure!" Nora continued. "Whatever you just hit me with for sure."

"He used that against the scorpion, too." Ruby gossipped back. "It was devastating."

"That's the one he used to break his aura?" Nora wondered. "No wonder."

"Yeah. You should see the other ones he has too. He has one where he moves with it. It's hard to explain."

"It's pretty though."

"I know right."

"Are we going to fight?" Ren wondered. "Or are you just listening to the girls."

"Yeah." I answered cutely, drawing my sword into a ready position. "You ready?"

"Speaking of…" Nora continued. "What was the name of your semblance Ruby?"

"Petal burst." Ruby took a sip of her drink, kicking her legs on the bench she sat on. God she was cute. She brushed her hair back out of her face by pouting her lips and blowing upwards.

"Boo." Nora ixnayed the creativity.

"Yang named it." Ruby defended easily. "It started when I was super young."

"How young are we talking about?"

"Young enough to not be able to control it. And to cause a few accidents."

"So what are we going to call that move?"

"Cross hit."

I grunted.

"Penta Slash no no wait, Cross Slash."

"Hold up, Ren! Don't just sit there and let him charge it!"

Too late. My skull roared and I rushed him. I swept my sword down at him with blue blur. I made sure not crack the pavement beneath Ren's feet. It turns out I didn't need to because Ren swept backwards. It looked like it was in slow motion compared to his usual speed.

I gave him no quarter. Limit Break only lasted so long so I spent it. I swept the distance between us thrusting Crocea Mors in all six foot glory forward as I rushed him with an impaling thrust. I caught him in the chest and lifted him up into the air. I followed it up with that baseball style swing catching Ren flat footed. I was starting to think that that was one of those moves that Ruby had a read on me for.

It was comfortable though, it felt right. He kicked at me, in normal speed now, but compared to the Scorpion he was in moving through jello. I blocked it by raising Crocea Mors vertically but it seemed to be a trap.

Ren caught my weapon and swung around me kicking me in the back and I went down rolling. He pursued me with his weapons ready to grapple and whipped my leg out from underneath me with a hook of stormflower. He ripped out a chunk of my aura with it and the other one at the same time.

I sighed even before I hit the ground. Semblance or not, some things remained the same.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

A wedding like the one GaiLong had in store was a large affair. People dancing, celebrating, drinking; it was one of the best ways to combat the Grimm which didn't involve actual combat. It was good to get the whole town involved and Beifhing and I both agreed that it would definitely be for the best if we made our own appearance at the wedding.

This would be the first such party-like event since the black-out panic for GaiLong. If it was the first in the valley, I couldn't be sure since there were only three major settlements left. GaiLong, Higanbana, and a further large settlement called Ogedei which Ren and Nora visited.

They said it was large and more military than Higanbana, let alone gentle GaiLong which relied instead on avoiding Grimm rather than fending them off. It was hard being that they couldn't move the city and whatnot, however, events like these were a critical weapon in the war against the Grimm. GaiLong didn't need walls or many armed guards, in fact, that would detract from the whole idyllic village thing they had going on.

It made people worry. My presence made people worry. This wedding was perfect for an evacuation timing. If we timed it just right, if not, the Grimm would rush the disoriented village in mass.

Streamers were going up all over town those paper lanterns were getting set up to go up. Further down the road a man was struggling to push along a cart full of fireworks.

I jogged down the path to him where he was struggling. "How's the workload?"

"Oh, um I'm afraid that my horse has fallen ill. So I'm managing without it."

"Please." I indicated to the cart. "Allow me."

He let me take over pulling the cart and I put it on my shoulders and set my hips against the weight of the fireworks, candles, and streamers inside.

"So you're the huntsman."

"One of them." I hefted the weight easily. To be honest I could probably carry the cart.

"You're the one who keeps meeting the Dono, though."

I nodded and started pulling.

"Y'know I promised one of my daughters that if I saw the opportunity I'd get her a dance from you."

"From me?"

"Don't be dense, man." He stretched as he walked beside me, letting a bit of a gut fall out. He wasn't in bad shape, but he wasn't militia material. "A guy like you."

"A guy like me?"

"Ya know? Tall, blonde, huntsman." He eyed my weapon. It was folded into a shape between shield and sword on my back. It was still nearly five feet long from handle to end of the shield and blade, even folded.

"I'll have to decline," I returned.

"You're with one of the huntresses, ain't ya. One or both?"

"Yeah," I said, processing the question. I grunted as I pulled the cart over a rock. I finally shook my head. "Just the little red one."

"I didn't mean no offense by it. The wedding, there's two grooms, you see. One bride."

"I didn't take any offense. Nora, the pink one, she's got her heart set on someone else. Where do you want this?"

"My daughter will be disappointed. The ballpark of the forge is fine, thank you young man."

"It was my pleasure." I set it down. There was a thousand advantages to being a huntsman. One of them was being able to move heavy things around. "Let me know if you need anything moved before the evacuation."

"Evacuation?"

"Don't play dumb, gas travels fast in a town like this."

"Ya caught me. I'll be sure to come find you for some of the heavier stuff." I nodded and waved him off. Ruby was waiting for me, leaning against the walls of the forge and chatting up the blacksmith as she wanted to do. She was toying with the sidearm we'd commodereed and playing with a child at the same time.

I stood there and watched her until the child's mother came by and with a brief word escorted the girl away from Ruby.

"Here comes the bride, all fat and wide!" The girl sang as her mother took her hand.

Her mother was quick to scold her. "If you sing that during the wedding so help me…"

"You alright?" I asked Ruby, she was watching the girl go with these long eyes.

"I'm fine, I'm just…"

"Just thinking, huh."

"Right, just thinking."

"I'm here for anything you need, Rubes. I promise." She smiled at me but it looked like she was masking.

"Thanks Jaune. Let's find some more busy work."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The wedding itself seemed surreal. I couldn't put my finger on the entire thing. The entire celebration was done by candlelight, those sort of lanterns with candles inside were set off and hovering every which direction. Strings of colored flags in red, pink, and lavender were strung between buildings in each direction.

They waved in the wind which blew about the scent of pulled pork and an entire roasted cow. Just for the occasion they'd slaughtered upwards of thirty animals for a massive feast. That was a more than welcome sight and Ruby and I stuffed ourselves.

Nora dragged Ren to several carnival like festivities and booths. Ren tried to look bedraggled as he was pulled along but the grin on his face was hidden from no one.

I was standing on a low hill, overwatching the affair with a certain dreamlike distance. An event I wasn't to partake in or an occasion that wasn't for me to truly immerse myself in and enjoy. Ruby came up beside me and put one hand on my shoulder.

"We should go down." She murmured softly. "Maybe dance a little."

I nodded. "After the ceremony." If she wanted to dance I was all for it. Even a bit excited.

We watched the bride approach the grooms. One of the grooms was in red, the other in that soft purple. When the bride in pink met them at the altar, they shed their robes with the different colors to reveal white shirts and a soft dress. This altar, so different from the last I'd seen, was also covered in red liquid.

It made me want to look away.

Together, they made their vows and I watched them pour tie dye on their pure white clothes, coating them in soft purples and reds until I couldn't tell where one color ends and the next began. They embraced and kissed to the cheers of their closest acquaintances with seats nearby.

"Come on, let's dance," she insisted this time, she took my right hand in her left and led me down to a small forum of cobbled stone. "You know how to dance right?"

"Sure, all kinds of dances. My father taught me. He wanted me to be able to move. Something about motor skills."

"He didn't just teach you to fight?"

I shrugged. "He wasn't like that."

We waited for the trio to have their dance. First together than in three groups. The happy set eventually left the dance floor free for others to join in and we did. Ruby dragged me out to the dance floor by my right hand. I slow waltzed with Ruby, holding her close under the sway of the music. She rested her head against my chest.

"You're so warm." She murmured as we twisted through a crowd of people. How she could feel it through my armor, I wasn't sure, but then I remembered my aura and how she probably felt it.

I reached out and I could feel her presence wrapped in mine. She felt so small for just a moment before I felt the true breath of her. Her real size and scope was so much greater than the tiny form I held by the waist.

"You know…" she trailed off.

"I probably don't." I returned.

"Never mind, then."

We drifted for a moment longer before the moment was interrupted.

Screams. They burst from the crowd as the dust cart I had pulled into place exploded. The force threw people near it to the ground and ripped others in half. "Jaune!" Ruby called out to me. My head was spinning from the force.

I thought there would be time, time to react and prepare but to be honest the bandits were on the place in moments. Figures dashing through the crowd cutting down people as they passed. The guards we enlightened flickered out like little lights. The bandits had huntsmen weapons and training if our encounter was anything to base it on.

The screams turned blood curdling as they cut through the dancers. Bodies fell and blood ran across the cobblestone streets.

"I should have known," I murmured. "It was too perfect."

The wedding was the perfect target to any spy watching GaiLong. It was critical.

A kid with a sword no older than me got in my way. I blocked it when he tried to slash me and end it quickly. I backed up charging my semblance, the explosion already nearly feeling my internal gauge. I stepped back in, sweeping my sword across his gut then across his chest.

The burn in my skull activated from the damage I delt and I destroyed him. I unleashed my semblance in the devastating five hit combo Ruby had dubbed the Cross Slash. The first four hits shredded his aura and the next blitzed straight through his body. I crushed his rib cage like a tin can.

It was easier the second time.

Blood splattered across my face and I spat it back out. Ruby had vanished in a blur instantly going where she was most needed. I watched the crimsonette sweep around the village, moving at at least mach three.

I paced forward looking for my next target. A young woman with young woman with tan-colored skin, short brown hair and icy blue eyes. She had a tattoo of a bird rising from flowers on her left arm.

She raised her weapons, two crescent curved blades, each with a ring-shaped center over a gun.

"You killed my friend," she said.

"Night's not even over."

She started things by shooting me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	15. Where the Trains Go III

**School is starting up, so we'll be switching to bi-weekly updates.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

You see some skinny girl like this you have to beware their true strength. A hidden knife or their semblance or something else to even the odds. Or maybe, much like Ruby, a combination of semblance and skill that just left her good. You know? Some people were just _good_.

Her guns, so far, were plenty for the purpose of keeping me at bay. Further, whenever I would try and close the gap, she would switch styles and jab at me with the sharpest edges of her blades.

She twisted in mid air, coming down on me with a flip and I bashed her into the ground. People kept trying that. It kept not working.

"Got som'more in you." She rose to her feet before I could stop her. I wanted to chase her down and bash her before she could get up but...

"Do it again." I whispered in the burning candlelight. "Let's find out."

I was bluffing. I was at my limit but my semblance was seriously a long way away from being charged. I could feel it like water filling a bottle or a well. It was close to empty and I was already exhausted.

I blocked high and she just stabbed me in the chest with the other blade. I winced, my wounds aggravated. It made me choke on my own spit. I whipped my sword at her head and she ducked under it. Asd she did she delivered a sort of body hook with her weapon to my side. I shoved the sword into her face to drive her back. No contact, but I got some space.

It was enough space to quickly swap my weapon's form. The shield was what I felt I really needed. My long arms and the four foot sword would provide enough reach. Space meant she could shoot me too, though, and she did several times but it was small arms fire that I shrugged off.

That was another perk of being a huntsman. Or at least a huntsman with my factors, I was largely immune to small arms. Her guns? Yes, sure. Crescent Rose? Absolutely not.

She cartwheeled back into my range before I could finish maneuvering the shield between us, I wanted to block both this and her upcoming fire, however, she kicked me in the stomach with both feet and I felt a stitch tear for real. I gasped and my hand dropped to where I assumed blood began to pour.

"I had no idea you were a fucking cripple already."

She loved to talk too, the bitch.

She jumped at me, scissoring her blades at my neck, I rolled back. I grunted from the effort of landing and rising again before in a single fluid motion she adjusted and she just kicked me in the stomach and red covered the front of my shirt.

"Are you like, a step from death. I don't know if I can feel good about killing you, you know?" She giggled. "Like do I feel proud or just like accepting that I won."

A call sounded out, an artificial bird call, and her head turned in the direction the sound came from, a curl to her lips as she backed up.

"What does that mean?"

She was smirking. "None of your business is here." I was fairly certain it wasn't good. That was the first rule of warfare, don't give your enemies gifts.

"What?"

"Go ahead, save the village."

Screams reverberated as the forge, what was left of it, was crushed when a massive shadow walked through it. Grimm were filtering through the village, snatching up children and adults with the same ease. The bandits had softened us up just right.

Fact one was, when she took off running, I pretty much knew what had walked into the village. Or at least I had a good idea. Second fact is, I was in no shape to do pretty much anything to the Nuckelavee. I was actually nearly passing out again.

"Jaune how are we doing?"

"Maybe a two, probably a one." I said honestly. Ruby was back beside me.

"What's it out of?"

"Ten. Maybe a twenty."

She looked around and whined. "What do I do?"

The Nuckelavee was like something I'd seen in a dream I tried to forget. It reached out and ripped a civilian in half and suddenly the range Crocea Mors provided me made me feel inadequate. It's arms covered half a courtyard and several buildings in the process of snatching one of the grooms. Red covered the tye dyed shirt as he fell in two pieces.

It had dozens of Spears and arrows pouring from it's back and they ruffled in a wave like a cat bristling as it moved. Suddenly the floor of it's den made sense. The swords which littered it's floor like so many stepping stones represented but a fraction of the times it had been wounded and had killed.

The monster walked through the forge like it wasn't even there. The horse it road in on was equally nightmarish. It seemed to hold the same intelligence as it's rider. I wasn't sure how far that went but I knew it was smarter than it had any right to be after just one look.

It had a certain awareness to it as it dodged projectiles for it's rider and crushed people.

Someone should have killed it decades, if not centuries ago.

If Ruby was waiting for me to provide a magic bullet she would be waiting a long time. "How are you two doing?" It was Nora running up on us with Ren. She gasped and reached for Ren's hand. "It's here."

I was hurt. As in I was seriously hurt. I was going to be no good in a fight against this thing except as a strategist. But the way my vision kept fading meant even the odds of that was low.

Ruby stepped forward as though to fight and Ren grabbed her shoulder. "If we fight now, Jaune will die."

"What am I supposed to do then." Some venom in her voice.

"Wait. Wait for the proper opportunity and fight it then. We can track it from here. GaiLong is gone, Ruby. It'll never recover. But you can get these people to Higanbana."

"Ren…" Nora whispered.

"Jaune what do you think."

I was dabbing my shirt at where my guts were falling out. "Wha-"

"Never mind. You're right, Ren. Everyone, follow us! I'm going to distract it." Ruby said the last part to us. She burst into petals and charged it. Meanwhile, Ren grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder with a grunt from both of us.

Nora called out. "To me! To me!" She fired grenades into a crowd of Grimm. And began to carve a path out of the village into the woods. "Into the woods! Come on!" She plucked a child into her arms and fought through an old looking Beowulf. Spinning her hammer with one hand, she crushed its ribs then its skull.

Ruby was all over the big threat. She appeared behind the Nuckelavee and shot it in the back three times. It whipped around and gave this howl that shook the foundations of those buildings that still stood. I wanted to block my ears but my arms drooped helplessly.

I watched Ruby slice into its leg then vanish into petals when it swung at her with its long arms. I lost sight of her, however, because when Ren began to jog my vision began to tunnel. I passed in and out of consciousness with the rhythm of his movement. His shoulder was digging right into my chest and stomach from the fireman's carry he was performing.

When I came to, I was in a stretcher with hardwood walls around me. I sighed. It was the hostel in Higanbana, I was familiar with the color of the lights and wood. The shape of the windows, in small rectangles, clued me in, too.

Ruby was on a chair in the corner, in the fetal position. She looked like I felt with tears streaking through the dust on her face.

"Ruby…"

"You're awake, thank gods." She stretched out of where she was curled up and walked over to me. She ran her hands through my hair, I wasn't sure who that brought more comfort to but I leaned into the gesture as always. "I was so worried."

"Ruby..."

"When that girl attacked you... I didn't know you were so badly hurt or I wouldn't have left you."

"Rubes…"

"Higanbana is safe or as safe as safe gets around here, we got some of the civilians out and to here. Had to escort them. It took a few extra days but Higanbana was willing to take the refugees, so long as they don't stay and move on to Mistral."

"It wasn't your fault."

Her hands froze in my hair.

"I'm tired of everyone telling me that." She eventually muscled the words out. "Ren and Nora and now you keep telling me that. It's the first thing you say to me."

"You don't sound like you believe it."

"My mother believed in saving everyone."

"You couldn't have saved everyone; I...I lead us right into an ambush."

"So it's your fault."

"A little. But mostly it's Vernal's fault. She's destroying villages for fun. People are like cattle to her and hunting them for sport. It's her favorite."

"You know that?"

"She has no motivation to destroy so many villages so quickly otherwise, she likes it."

"My mother would have saved everyone." she whipped her eyes. "She was like that. Me, I hardly saved anyone."

"You saved my life again. I know it isn't much, really." She wanted to hit me, instead she rubbed my stomach and I groaned. "It's not. One day you'll see that I'm not one tenth as special as any member of team RWBY." I sat up, slowly. "Come here." I beckoned.

She did, pressing her head against my collar where I held her close and she shook as she sobbed. "It was like Beacon all over again. Time and time again I was too slow. Is my semblance only good for running away? Am I?"

I suppress a laugh. "Your semblance is not for running away I can promise you that. Ruby your semblance makes you nearly invincible. That's who you are."

"Pyrrha-"

"But nothing about Pyrrha. She had her strengths but she can't burst apart and dodge any attack. You can. That's who you are. Look at how you suffer for people you've never met."

"People I've never met. I chose you. I had to make a choice, you or everyone else in GaiLong, was that selfish of me?"

"You couldn't have saved the people of GaiLong except on a slim chance. So maybe, but you'll have to make it again. Just like I'll have to kill again."

"That doesn't make me feel better," she sobbed.

"Well being a murderer doesn't make me feel good, but I'll have to do it again, and again and again. When you make your decisions I can't question them and I'll be right beside you all the while."

"You're really bad at this." She hiccuped but she laughed a little too. "You're supposed to comfort a crying girl."

"Yeah, well, I'm not supposed to lie to you either. We can do this together."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	16. Muninn I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Raven wasn't gentle with where she dropped me and my captor off. Vernal, was it? Have to keep an eye on that. The name just shouted for me to be suspicious. How obvious could you be? I mean my name is Qrow.

True to her orders, though, Vernal let me go with my weapon and set me on my way. I was lost for a bit, however, and by the time I found Ruby and her friends, or where they should have been, GaiLong or whatever, the entire place was GaiGone.

At least I was pretty sure this is where they had been staying. I crouched down beside the destroyed buildings, trampled lanterns and trees all around. I reached into the mud and traced a hand over the Grimm foot prints.

They were large, large enough to make me panic. Okay, not panic but a little worried. Perhaps concerned, even. Not panicked though. If whatever this was got Ruby because I'd been chatting with my sister then I'd-

Well, I'd never forgive myself, to say the least.

What else had I missed while Raven and I had been chatting? One of Salem's agents could easily have attacked her while I was gone and I cursed at the raw nothing and took a swig from my flask.

Salem, as ever, seemed to have every advantage. Pain lanced at my side where I'd been gripping the cane hard. Where was Oz, really? Evidently I'd gripped the thing hard enough to draw blood from my own nails. Untrimmed and untamed out here. I'd have to be careful to avoid infection. I dumped a bit of liquor from my flask across my hand to disinfect it.

A stray beowulf, attracted by my pain and lingering by the disaster tried to creep up on me but I waved my weapon in its direction and a focused beam erupted from the blade and tore the creature down.

Ruby… Ruby was all that mattered. I refused to be too slow. Not this time, never again. I'd slay this Grimm by myself and then Ruby and her friends would have no choice but to press on. That's why they were staying right? The waitress had said so, at least. Uff. Too many distractions, I'd lost focus on what was truly important.

If they had another reason to stick around, I'd have to convince them. I needed to get Ruby to Mistral no matter the cost.

The Grimm I'd hit with blade beam went down and stayed down, but it didn't start to disintegrate. Feigning death would only work with a less experienced hunter and rather than attack it with another beam of aura from my sword, I shot it. The shotgun finished the job and the wolf fell into pieces and disintegrated. Getting close was a risk I wasn't particularly interested in, if it really was displaying smart behavior then I wanted none of that.

Too many huntsman had been killed by a small smart Grimm which took them by surprise. Of course I couldn't get an exact number because they were fucking dead now. I wasn't going to join them by underestimating even the smallest of Grimm.

I didn't get to be where I was hunting this _thing_ by being stupid like that.

I just couldn't count my semblance out.

Tai had once experimented with the range of my semblance. Tempted fate. I called it that then and I called it that now. In the end I'd gotten my own room in a closed wing of Beacon. It was a necessity. We'd thought the range of semblance was twenty feet, then thirty, then we realized we really couldn't pin the range of it down at all.

It was much like Raven's in that regard. Perhaps both of our semblances were rangeless.

I honestly couldn't rule out that my semblance hadn't cut this butterfly's wings and destroyed this town, just because it had been on my mind. Luck was hard to characterize. Who knows how one thing had affected another to send this small idyllic town toppling down.

I really was just that unlucky that I could have killed my niece and her friends too I guess. Not to mention all these people. I was responsible. I couldn't forget that, and what I'd done.

I transformed and felt the wind beneath my wings. Oz just had to turn me into a crow. Raven got to be a raven. All elegant and nearly regal and I got to be a crow. It really was like that. I could only assume he didn't have total control over the magic responsible and that my semblance had interfered somehow.

I could only assume he had to let the magic do it's thing, regardless of the outcomes.

My semblance was a lot like that. It was as permanent as death or mental illness. It lasted forever or close enough to it to be indistinguishable. That's the real reason I didn't travel with Ruby. I could kill her just by being close to her. Just by thinking about her was perhaps enough to do it.

How my semblance worked for real was a mystery to me. It didn't come with a guide book and was vague. It was so vague I couldn't really see it growing in power over the years, but it was, I felt it. It acted further, faster, and more potently than it ever did in my teenage years now.

It had stopped growing in power in my thirties but by then it was so strong that I knew I could never have a team or a family ever again. My power was like that. _I _was like that.

I flew through tree and dodged branches until i made it out into the open sky. I flapped my wings and experienced a sheer joy that no human unaided by semblance could accomplish. I'd heard of some faunus who had the power of flight but they were few and far between.

I was also somebody capable of tracking a Grimm across dozens of miles, and fast, too. It wouldn't escape me just to destroy another village or hurt Ruby; assuming it hadn't already. I mean look at the size of this thing. I could end this myself and get my revenge if needed. I could end this all by myself.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	17. The Zolom I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was a part of something bigger, made of something bigger. When I opened my eyes, Ruby was there. All of RWBY was there in fact, JNPR too. And CRDL even. Everyone I had ever met and, you know what, everyone I had ever not met was stuck too. Not just humans but faunus too. All Cetra in one giant groaning mass.

We were all there and made and trapped in this stuff. I tried to move but I was stuck in it. Like I'd been cemented into place in this wall. But the stuff wasn't cement it was flesh, both human and Grimm. When I looked out beyond there was only one thing that wasn't stuck in the goo, only one person.

A woman.

"Mother!" I called out. "Mother save me!" With dark eyes, she turned towards me.

She walked towards me and cupped my chin with ghost white hands. "Of course, my child. I will save you. Hush now."

With one gentle pull she ripped me free of the wall into her ghostly white arms. I shuddered as she cradled me.

When I woke up, Ruby's arms were tight around me. Her face held the exact same soft expression it had when she was stuck in the wall. I couldn't look at her. Especially as she sighed softly and nuzzled her face into my shoulder.

She could have been in her own bed. She was, in fact, in her own bed when I'd finally passed out. It made me wonder what I'd been doing in my sleep that made her switch beds at some point in the night.

There had been cries for help. People sobbed in the wall. But I knew that no one made it out of the four and a half billion year deep corpse pile. I screamed and something had looked at me. I called out in pure instinct for my mother and something had answered. It was alien, foreign. It was not like us.

My mouth open in a silent scream in the real world, I'd drooled all over my pillow and sheets. I flipped the pillow over and laid my head back but I knew I'd never get any sleep now.

All I could think was that she wasn't my mother. My mother had golden locks and pale blue eyes. She was not the Grimm woman I'd seen.

Ruby hushed me and rubbed my chest softly. Harsh red and orange scars stood out across it. She mumbled softly in her sleep. I watched her adjust her position across my chest, her hands taking mine in hers as she did.

I relaxed but only slightly. The sight of the woman's eyes were burned into my mind.

I checked my scroll. It was three thirty in the am. Way to early to go about waking Ruby or any such nonsense. I slid out of bed carefully, avoiding any movement which might wake Ruby and slid my pillow into my place. She adorably wrapped her arms around it and I couldn't help but brush her hair back and kiss her forehead.

I made my way over to the minifridge and help[ed myself to some of the icecream Ruby had bought and binged to make herself feel better. Strawberry sherbet. Fitting. And for breakfast no less. I sighed and wiped my forehead.

"Jaune…" A quiet whisper. I'd failed and been caught. She came up behind me and wrapped her arms around me. There was a mirror which ran across our wall in which I'd failed to notice her creeping up behind me. Her tight pjs pressed against my back and her fingers traced about the scars on my chest.

"It's nothing, just a bad dream."

"You've been having a lot of those." She almost scolded me. But if it was a scold I wanted to be scolded again, it was so gentle.

"They're nothing," I tried.

"Not nothing," she denied easily. "Tell me about them," she murmured. Her voice like a shallow creek. "Are they about Tyrian?"

"Who? The scorpion?"

I felt her roll her eyes against my back. "His name was Tyrian."

"He doesn't deserve so much as a name. Calling him 'The Scorpion' is already too good for him."

"Tell me about your nightmares, Jaune." She was impossible to distract, it would seem. That's why I loved her; I think. Not only was she a sweetheart, she was unrelenting. It was unbelievably attractive.

I told her about the woman who looked like a Grimm but not about the mound of human and faunus flesh. She was worried enough about me physically.

I shuddered as she ran her hands through my scars, the warmth of her fingers rocked me to my bones. The feeling spread across my ribs as I turned around and wrapped her in my arms. Her arms stayed tight within mine and she leaned her head against my chest again.

"Jaune..."

"I'll be okay Rubes. Pinky promise."

She wrapped her hands around my neck and kissed me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Near the start of the trip we'd split into rooms based on gender, later we divided ourselves along what were the developing couples. I happened to run into my old roommate in the hallways of the hotel.

"Ren," I greeted.

"Jaune," he nodded back at me.

"So are you going to tell me how you know so much about this Grimm."

He sighed. "Not much to tell. It killed my parents."

I raised an eyebrow. "Bruh," I stated.

"Yes. I realized it as soon as I said it." Ren agreed. "There's a lot to tell, actually. My father was a hunter who protected a village near here. Where is largely irrelevant. The village is gone now. Much like GaiLong."

"Because of the Nuckelavee?"

"In part. There had already been a rush of Grimm. Whether the town would have survived if it hadn't showed up is a mystery to me." He frowned. "I'd like to doubt it."

"Its like that sometimes." I thought of recent events but more distantly the dragon Grimm which was petrified at Beacon tower. Ruby's silver eyes made the ultimate weapon against Grimm. At least that was how she had explained it.

She still had no idea how to control the damn thing in that regard so I wasn't planning on throwing her against the Nuckelavee. Although…

Mystery eye powers aside, Ruby's abilities were awesome. It made mine, Ren's, and Nora's look lackluster.

"I had hopped-well- I'd hoped to be the one to kill it." Ren confessed.

"Ren, Ruby wasn't even powerful enough to kill it. Therefore no one in our party is."

He grinned sideways at me. "You underestimate yourself. As always."

I sighed. "Not you too."

"Jaune your power is fantastic, if only underdeveloped. You'll only grow stronger from here. Yours is the kind that manifests all sorts of other abilities. Like Ruby's invulnerability. It isn't… raw. Like Nora's or mine."

"Limit is limit." I said it like it meant something. However, Ren nodded along like it did. "Maybe I'll grow but not soon enough. The point is you can't do this alone, Ren. You didn't tell me about its howl. People died."

"You're right. Of course you are. You have a mind for such things."

We walked in brief silence through a courtyard past a gaurd house and up the steps of the North wall. Like I mentioned they were much more militarized than GaiLong. Perhaps that was the way to resist the Grimm. "Maybe we should be more militarized. Like Atlas. Like here. Maybe that's how we are supposed to be."

"I don't think so." Ren whispered. "You and Ruby make our decisions together. You two keep making the right decisions, even. You do so together. That's what makes you two strong. Not your rediculous powers."

"You think us getting together was right?" It was on my mind a bit.

"Yes, even when you ask stupid questions." Ren smirked. Damn him. "I, on the other hand, keep making poor choices. Choices which get people hurt. I do so because I'm making them alone."

"Then don't. Talk to Nora. She talks to Ruby, who talks to me."

"I'd rather, I think, just talk to you when I need to. Cut the girls out when I should. That would be much more rational."

"I doubt I'd be rational about anything concerning my family." I forgave. "Can you tell me anything else about it I should know."

"It'll be fully healed when next we encounter it. Your landmine strategy won't work unless the explosives kill it outright. Its healing factor is so."

I chewed on my cheek.

"I keep…" Ren tried. "I keep pushing Nora away. For no real reason."

"Huh?" I wondered. "Are you just… scared?"

He breathed and leaned against a wall. He stretched his hands over his head then, after a moment, he pulled himself back up. "Yes. I'm terrified of ruining what we have. That she'll find out I'm not what she really wanted."

"Huh?"

"Please. Take me seriously."

"I am. I was afraid of the same thing with Ruby. Still am."

"But she wanted you before..." He trailed off. "Oh I see."

"Yeah."

"Huh," he said. "It's that simple? She wanted me before."

"Yeah."

"Does this go away?" He geastured helplessly.

"Getting kissed helps. It helps a lot."

"I see."

"Sirs?" A guard was behind us. We whipped around. "Will you take a look at this? It's out of our uh-league? Yeah. League."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We walked into a- I guess it was a barracks? It was low and cobblestone and cement. It had few windows and a large table lined with wooden chairs. It didn't strike me as comfortable so much as sturdy.

There was a weapon on a stone table in the middle of the room. A huntsman's weapon. Except it was clearly bent at odd angles. The metal was warped and internal gears were not only exposed, I supposed some were missing.

It consisted of a series of blocked edges which may have formed a single edged sword, my style in that it was long and single edged. Although it could have been used to form something else given the long shaft beside it. The shaft was snapped in two but it was red and black. Maybe some kind of glaive or even a scythe if I was expounding.

Hey, I'd seen my fair share of scythe.

A pair of barrells probably sat on either side of the main blade, given the symmetry most weapons had, at least. This weapon only had one and the main blades were dinged and dented all across their surfaces. I tapped the blade of Crocea Mors against it, using the bastard sword. and it felt like the same material. The material all high quality weapons shared. Titania.

Normal steel just couldn't hold up to the stresses huntsman's weapons were put under. It had to be Titania or nothing.

"A patrol near GaiLong found it. We hoped you could identify it." The militia man explained in a deep voice. "It's huntsman, right?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "Definitely huntsman." I eyed the barrel and took a closer look. A shotgun shell, dust propellant and probably custom made was still in the chamber. "Ren, run and go grab our weapons expert. She'll be sleeping but she'll want to see this." I flicked the safety on. At least that was still working.

Ren nodded and left to fetch Ruby.

I tried several buttons and switches but they just made those internal; gears spin without properly catching. At a guess, all those gears were Titania too, had to be in order to keep up with aura.

I pulled the shell out of the chamber and eyed it closely. The shell itself was steel and was therefore not a problem.

I leveraged my sword down on the shotgun shell and split it open. I was confident the dust would only go off if the shell was hit properly. I wasn't doing anything like that. There were pellets, metal grains, probably lead or steel on one side, at least at the taste. On the other side was something I was much more interested in and capable of analyzing.

The dust propellent. I smelled it. Burn and a small amount of shock. Enough to propel the pellets at a fairly decent velocity. Close range though. That matched the barrel.

The barrel length was fairly short without a choke or a hop up. Probably made it a close ranged weapon even for a shotgun.

Ruby stepped down into the bunker behind me. I could smell her. Flowers and gunpowder before I saw her. I stepped back so she could see the weapon and her hands raised to her face.

"You know this one?"

"It's my uncle's." She recognized it better than a face. "What happened where did you find this?" She started to run away with questions.

"They said they found it near GaiLong."

"Jaune he won't survive long without his weapon he-"

"Ruby..."

"He'll have methods to survive but not forever. We have to go rescue him." Her eyes had _that_ look in them. I knew I couldn't argue that he was dead.

"Can you give us a second?" I asked the militia man.

He glanced between us and shook his head slowly. "I'm supposed to- that is I need to…" He was supposed to watch us, then. I interpreted.

I shook my head, hands out. "Never mind, then. We'll pay for it, though, regardless."

"They said that you might." He named a steep price.

I grimaced but agreed to it. It wasn't like we didn't have the money. Well did. Not anymore. For what was basically junk.

It was junk that meant a great deal to Ruby, though.

I turned back to Ruby. She cradled the weapon in her arms. Like a long lost baby. Of course I'd do what she asked. Didn't she get it by now? That he was probably dead yet I'd still go with her to find him?

"Tell us where you found it," I ordered the guard. It was fair at the price the rider was asking. He knew and his bosses knew it too. We were paying for the location as much as the weapon.

He nodded and laid it out on a map near GaiLong for us. I copied it to my own scroll with a photo. Then I overlaid it with my own digital map and strapped my scroll back to the inside of my wrist.

"Thank you, Jaune." Ruby whispered, stroking the edges of the blades ever so gently, so as to not cut herself.

"Of course."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	18. The Zollom II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Ren's been quiet." Nora rode up beside me. We were following Ruby whose senses assured us that this was the direction her uncle was in. We'd passed a burning wreckage of forrest, the place where we were told his weapon had been found.

It had been a place filled with damaged foliage and burnt down and toppled trees. Some places still smoked from dust cartridges used and discarded. However Ruby had made sure to stop me from organizing a search in the area and ordered us into the mountains. She was certain her uncle was there, even injured.

Ruby followed her heart upwards and I could only follow.

With anyone else, I'd tell say Ren was always quiet. This was Nora we were talking about, though. Nora. She was basically Ren's and her own mouth piece. She knew, probably better than Ren himself did and certainly better than I did.

"You talked to him didn't you," she accused. She said it like I had killed someone. Which I had of course. Just not over this.

"We had a chat." I hedged. People assumed that because of her talkativeness that she was also airheaded. But whatever air had been in her head had left through her mouth long ago and now it left behind whatever people had in their heads besides air. Brains, I think they called them.

"Really?!" She faked shock. "Well maybe I deserve to know what it was about. It is afterall, affecting our ability to talk to each other."

"It was about you." She was going to fake shock again. "Don't play dumb. I just gave some advice about how I got with Ruby. I told him she really made the first move."

"Do you think I haven't made moves. I'm making moves over here."

"He said he was scared." Ren rode a ways behind us. He trusted his horse and had his eyes nearly closed in concentration. He was constantly feeling outwards for Grimm and danger.

Between him in that state and Ruby leading that left me Nora with space to chat.

"Scared of what. What does he have to be scared of? Isn't it obvious how much I care about him?" She asked the world and not me.

"He's afraid of you." I tried to explain.

"He's afraid of me? Why?"

"How should I know?"

"Well now you're really being unhelpful. I think you're doing it on purpose. He had no reason to be afraid of me. I love him."

"He's confused."

She chewed her cheek hard. "Does he think I'll just abandon him or something? We're all we have." She looked at me. "No offense."

"None taken." Genuinely. I was a piece of shit.

"I meant all we have to each other. No. I meant-"

"Seriously none taken." Really.

"So what does he really have to be afraid of. I'm willing and I know from listening to him in his sleep that he is."

I had no idea what she was talking about. Ren may as well have been a ghost in his sleep back at Beacon.

"He's scared of ruining what you already have."

"That's rediculous. Of course we'll ruin what we have right now. That's the point." She rode for a moment in thought. "Besides, we'll never have what we have right now again anyways. That's how time works, I think."

Thanks for the panic, Nora.

"I tried to tell him something similar." I defended.

"Ugh. You told him the opposite. Didn't you. You probably said something about having your cake and eating it too."

"I really don't think I did. There are some anxieties that mediocre dudes have that beautiful girls don't, is all."

"I knew it. You told him something sweet instead of seize the day and now he isn't seizing, Jaune. I want to be seized."

I wanted to protest the scary things she had told me but no. She was trucking along and I just had to keep up. "Have you tried just kissing him?"

She sighed. "No. But I've tried everything short of that. Should I?"

"He wants to kiss you. You want to kiss him. Just use some late night in your room. What are you waiting for? Tell him to come to you and you know he will. He's just scared.

"It's not that easy?" She tried. She sighed. "I'm scared, too. You know. He's not the only scared one. Besides will you be okay with it. I mean, sure, we're not back at Beacon so it's less drama. But you'll be the odd one out in JNR. Are you okay with that? Besides it feels like such a big leap."

"Seize your guy Nora. He wants to be seized by you."

"You're bullshit Jaune. You cheat." It was said with affection, though. She sighed again, even harder than before, leaning against her horse's neck a little. "Maybe I'm a little scared too. Maybe-"

"This is it!" Ruby called out behind her to us. Her heart and connection with her uncle had lead us here. I gave Nora a parting look before I rode up beside Ruby and dismounted with her.

She pushed aside some leaves and foliage. She gasped and recoiled and I heard a low voice murmur her name from it. I peaked inside the hiding place. Half a person laid in there. They were tall and I do mean 'were' because if we sat him up now he'd barely come up to my torso. Though his torso was decently long, I suppose.

He had red eyes and dark, greying hair, and no legs. He had no legs at the mid thigh and he moaned a name I didn't catch but it made Ruby focus, so I assumed it was hers.

"Jaune get the stretcher ready," she ordered me. I nodded along and walked back to where Ren had stopped his horse next to Nora's. I pulled the sticks free and put the mobile stretcher together to drag behind a horse.

"Give me a hand lifting him." I ordered Nora. She nodded and dismounted. "Ren, make sure I put it together right." He checked the stretcher and how it was attached to his horse. The last thing I wanted to give the already injured man was a concussion.

In my head I couldn't stop thinking about how the man in the foliage had cauterized his own legs at the mid thigh. The asymmetry of it had me shook.

I grabbed beneath one arm and the man let's loose a groan as Nora took the other. How the hell had he escaped while so badly injured from whatever had been strong enough to hurt him like this? Let alone make it this far from the sight of his battle?

It wasn't like he had won and then dragged himself all the way up here. Most Grimm left no sign of their defeat but the Nuckelavee was riddled with weapons which wouldn't disintegrate with it. There would have been a sign that it was slain.

He grabbed me as I set him on the stretcher. "It's not dead. I hurt it, though. It's all I did was hurt it. It's old as fuck and it's not dead." He rambled at me deliriously. "How are you going to kill it, Tai?" Ruby shushed him softly.

Well I was going to use bombs but evidently that wouldn't work which means I'd need to use guns and swords. Probably with bombs. I strapped him into the stretcher at the waist and beneath the arms. I pulled the leg restraints tight over nothing. Better that than have them flapping and dragging.

They hung in the air over the lopsided stumps. I recoiled when finished and Ruby was there beside me looking down at her uncle with affectionate eyes. She brushed his dirty hair and whispered something to him which was none of my business to listen to.

"Jaune," she murmured. "Do you think it has a cave up here too. Near here. Where it would go if it was hurt."

"I do." And I did. "I want to get some bombs ready." I moved over to my horse where I had some large dust crystals strapped and began to wire them together with copper and tape. Electric and fire. "I want to throw some of these at it when we meet. Then move in for the kill."

"Sounds like a plan." Did it? Was that enough? Did I really sound so collected? My voice shook to my own ears. "Ren!" She called out. "Lead us towards danger."

He closed his eyes and gave a firm nod. He and Nora were holding hands close by, both of hers in one of his. He remounted and I did too, trailing close to Ruby this time. "Tai's your father, right?"

She nodded as she remounted and I pivoted my horse beside hers as I tossed a bomb to Ren which he caught dexterously. I was saving most of the electric crystals for Nora. A big plan B.

"Taiyang Xiao Long. Yang's bio-mom named her after him when she was born. Then she left us."

"But you were both raised by your Mom? Something Rose?" Families were complicated.

"Can we talk about this later?"

"Right. Right. Of course."

Would there be a later? Old huntsmen were like Grimm. A lot grew with the experience that comes with age. How to kill better. How to use their semblances.

If Qrow only did a number on it, then I could only hope he's done enough to mean something. Hopefully half as much as it had done on him. Otherwise this was shaping up to be the fight of our lives. Or at least mine.

I breathed in and focused on riding. I reached out to my semblance and I must have been holding my breath and charging it because I wasn't empty.

"Found something." Ren declared, shortly after leading us off an animal trail into the path of something larger. Something which didn't care about following the footsteps of other animals because it simply wasn't.

He said it loud enough for me to hear over my musings and from behind him. Combat mode Ren (TM).

It was a puddle of Grimm blood. There was a stirring within that made my horse skittish as I rode up to it and from horse back I sunk my blade down into it. I squashed whatever 'life' was inside.

No question, then. We were on its trail.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Eventually the horses grew too nervous to approach and we left them further back in the mountains and continued on foot. I armed Nora with electric dust and everyone with bombs. Maybe we'd get lucky and perform a one-two punch with Nora's semblance and the explosives but I still felt unprepared and small compared to it.

We had to leave Ruby's uncle behind. Strapped to a horse and defenseless. Ruby kept giving parting looks until I walked up beside her and took her hand. "Game face, Rubes."

"Right. Game face." She shook her head and flashed into blur of petals in place. Loosening up for the fight in some way.

The older huntsman had regained some aura so he probably wouldn't die. He was just going to be in a lot of pain whenever he woke up for real.

It was waiting for us, staring out from its den with enormous red eyes and face mask. Just staring. I figured it chose its dens for visibility and it wasn't like it needed sleep like we did so it was just standing there at the mouth of the cave near the edge of a cliff.

"Now." I called out and I suddenly I found our plan lacking when we all threw our explosives at different parts of the beast. Ren's aim struck its side where a deep gash leaked black blood. It recoiled and mine straight missed and went over its head, exploding against the den wall above it.

Ruby's hit the ground at its feet and Nora's struck one of its legs. It howled again. Shaking the entire mountain range. Nora pulled out her launcher and started blasting the side of the horse as we tried our first approach.

It certainly tried to stop us from getting close enough to its body to do any damage. Its arms stretched out and slashed at Ren and Ruby, but Ruby burst apart and sprinted past it and Ren somersaulted over its arms slashing into its hide with his daggers as he went. It galloped in place, a far side faster than I thought it had any right too.

Ruby shot it a half a dozen times as they approached each other before flying apart and slashing at its already injured side with her scythe.

On the other side, Nora took an electric dust crystal and shoved it into her chest. It slipped right through her skin and she let out a pained war cry before jumping. Ruby caught her mid air and launched her even faster off of her scythe with a flash from the rifle. Nora slammed her hammer meatily into the uninjured flank.

The force of the blow knocked it to its front knees in a flash of pink and yellow lightning.

The monster had enough. It bulldozed into Nora and before she could eat any more dust it tried to pin her down and crush her.

But its attention was stolen by me. My semblance activated in a flare of aura. As my aura changed color and consistency, its eyes locked on to me and I sprinted straight towards it.

Without any aura, I could end things here and now with a cross slash to its center mass. With one massive knee pinning Nora to the ground, only the shaft of magnihild between her in the beast.

It looked away, suddenly changing targets. I jumped over one arm but the other slapped me from the air and slashed at me. I blocked but wasn't fast enough to counter attack afterwards. Its arm enough to nearly knock me off balance. I was the only one besides Nora trying to block the attacks rather than dodge them. She was at least using both arms to do so.

Ruby hovered right up to it and shot it in the face and it let loose another horrible shriek and tried to claw at her with one free arm.

Ren skirted around the beast in a wide arc, hoping to get behind it, opening fire all the while and peppering it with small green bullets.

I needed to act fast, before my semblance faded but its arms were fantastic for keeping me at bay by hammering my shield. I wasn't able to slash at even the arms and it lowered more weight onto Nora. It even began to depress her into the ground and she let loose another half war-cry, half pained shout as she tried to hold it up. She reached over with her mouth a bit through a crystal strapped to her shoulder.

The explosion rocked the beast off of her while she absorbed it completely and threw its leg upwards. Getting up out of the hole it pushed her into would have taken too long so Ren leapt in and snatched her off the ground before it could come back down with its taloned front legs.

I switched the form of my weapon while it was distracted. The shield wasn't helping at all. I needed the weight and heft the broadsword had.

I blocked its slithering arm with the wide side of my blade and danced to the side. It went slightly limp when the explosion went off and I then spent limit on my only target. Its right arm.

Wielding the weapon with both hands, I was fast enough to cut off its hand at the wrist in a single upwards swing.

It howled once more, the waves reverberated over us and Ruby slipped behind it and tried to pull Crescent Rose through an injured leg with a pull of her trigger. It only bit halfway through, though. Despite all her strength, its hide was tough at the legs and she had dash out of the way of mashing hooved feet as it trotted about in agony and tried to regain balance.

I sighed. My semblance a long ways off, now. I felt naked with it so far away in this fight. I sprinted towards it as Ruby flitted about slashing at its sides and its legs but she never got the chance to do anything like decapitate it.

It had so much speed that it was able to trot about and slash at her with its legs even as it fought the rest of us with its arms.

Nora was back on her feet but we only had one crystal left to overcharge her with. she danced inwards, swinging the hammer about and trying to catch the side of one of its knees. Ren reloaded beside her, his eyes in a narrow glare. He jumped over it in one massive leap, cartwheeling and raining bullets down on it as he flipped.

It spun in a circle, letting its arms flail about to try and catch us all in a get-off-me option that first knocked me off my feet then, when its next arm came around, knocked me to the edge of the cliff.

"Jaune!" Ruby shouted. She must have evaded its attacks unlike me. It seemed like it managed to drive her back though.

"Ren don't!" I heard Nora call before I heard the smack of meat against rock.

I climbed back up onto the battlefield only to see it had Ren pinned to a wall of its den. It made no move to rush him down and crush him. Instead it watched the still standing Nora and Ruby warily.

It pressed him further into the rock and I watched his aura glow under the force of it.

It dropped him when a grande splashed against its back. It shrieked and slipped its handless arm at the offending Nora but she rolled underneath it.

"Move in a circle!" I shouted. "Don't stand still!"

Ren gathered his breath and started sprinting while Nora continued her pace, bouncing grenades off of its back and flanks. She opened the already existing wounds further. Ruby hesitated, just a second, and went to finish hamstringing the creature as it turned to keep up with the explosions.

It seemed ready and it reared forwards like a horse and kicked her with both back legs once she was behind it. It hit her hard enough to bounce her off the cave wall and make her aura flash crimson around her.

It leapt at her, pouncing on her with both clawed front hooves, reminding me suddenly of a large cat instead of a horse but she saw it coming and gasped before melting into petals.

I rolled my wrist and checked my scroll. Nora and I were both green, even if hers had hints of yellow to it. Ren was a solid yellow and Ruby was looking orange.

I wasn't sure if she was so low from using her semblance so much or if it had done that much damage to her in a single shot, hitting her center of mass with both hooves.

With its back to me, I sprinted forward and swung through its hind leg, I missed the point where Ruby had already started an injury but cut through nonetheless and kept my momentum.

Black acidic smoke billowed from where I sliced.

It turned its body into me. Slamming its spiked ribcage into my face and torso. I rolled to the side before it could land on me and start its crushing bit but its handless arm swept up from the other direction and made me grunt as it flung me off my feet in the opposite direction of my roll.

Ren surged forwards slashing at its free arm but it body checked him too. It grabbed me by the leg and slammed me into the ground once just to make me dizzy.

Then it slammed me twice to make my head spin.

Then it slammed me a third time to actually make the message stick.

Its arm slithered back over to it and we took another moment to size each other up. Its gaze roamed over each of us and I found myself wondering if it could tell how much it had hurt anyone of us.

I mean, I could see the damage to its flank and right back leg. I could see where the explosives had burned its back, head and sides.

Could it see how much damage each of our aura had taken with those two sets of glowing red eyes?

I hoped not because in my head its eyes held on Ruby, our little glass cannon. Or it could have been my imagination.

Time was in my favor, though. If it wanted to give me time I'd use it to charge.

It rushed us with it lopsided claws and tried to get a hand on Ruby but she vanished once more. It seemed to anticipate that and the arms changed directions, one knocked Ren aside and the other grabbed Nora by the leg and tried to throwing her off the edge.

Ren stopped it by burying both daggers into the left arm as it tried to reach past him and pinned the arm down. Ruby appeared and shot it twice and slashed its front with the long edge of Crescent Rose. She was gone again in a moment but I could hear her panting.

Its other arm, handless now swatted at me and the whole thing galloped towards where Ren had its arm pinned. If it couldn't bring its arm back I suppose it had no choice but to come to its arm.

It seemed to have the same conclusion and I couldn't really stay in the way and dashed back. Ren had to give up his position, releasing its arm due to the sheer threat the massive body possessed. I darted around to the left rear leg and Ruby met me there. Without a word between us we went for the hamstring again. This time we sliced through and it tumbled down onto its knees.

It was strong enough to lift itself back up and hobble around unbalanced on one leg. The damage made me gain Limit and with a burst of aura I sliced upwards lifting myself into the air I parted through its left flank and then I come back down in a wave of blue. I left two sharp deep cuts in its side next to each other from the motion.

It screamed again but it must have realized that this was its end. It wouldn't be able to escape us now for sure. Nora swallowed the last dust crystal and bashed into its right side.

It tumbled down. Its body battered and nearly sliced in two between my cuts and the damage Qrow left behind. The sheer force of Nora's attack was nearly enough to blow it in half.

Alone it probably would have killed anyone of us but I wasn't sure if it had ever come across a team of hunters.

It slashed at me, desperately, but Ruby and I caught the handless arm between our weapons. I stabbed Crocea Mors down through the limb and into the Earth. Ruby then flitted over to its neck and hooked the scythe under its neck and simultaneously swinging herself upwards and cutting through to the other side. With her blade over the horse's neck and she shot upwards and pulled down, taking the horse's head off in a single fluid and fast motion.

Nora slammed magnihild down against its last free arm and we held on despite the shrieks and howls as Ren walked up to its face and ripped it off with his daggers.

Both bodies turned to smoke and weapons clattered to the ground. Arrows and broken spears fell. I could have sworn it gave me one last parting glare before its head turned to smoke on the ground and Ren uncharacteristically kicked it, sending it rolling as it unraveled into nothing.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	19. Sector 7 I

**Gotta rehash some canon here. Pardon me. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"No this isn't right." I stopped wheeling Qrow in his chair and listened to him. We'd booked a train to Mistral after we killed the Nuckelavee. We had the evidence to bring back for it's death in the form of the ancient weapons on its back and it fetched a fair price from the locals.

Most of the time proving you had killed a certain Grimm was a pain but in this case we had an exception.

We didn't score enough money to get Qrow back on a new pair of feet but enough to get passage and start the process. Qrow needed a set of Titania legs and his weapon was non-functional entirely. He'd probably need his new legs to be Atlesian and damn near custom. Just like every part of his weapon would have to be custom, too. We could afford a chair for him, though. That was something.

It wasn't so bad since he could go to the bathroom in his bird form, but I could tell he hated it. Who wouldn't?

"The relic should be guarded at all times. This place is dead empty." He took a long sip from his flask in the chair. "Lionheart's office is that way." He pointed down the well furnished corridor. The Mistrali architecture and garnishment, what with the gardens and paintings, made Beacon look drab and dreary by comparison.

Ruby led the way forward following her uncle's directions. I followed more slowly with the chair.

An older looking man with greying hair and a square shaped face hidden under a bushy mane burst the door that Qrow had indicated open. "Qrow!" he let loose. Then he collapsed, a hand raising to his head. "What happened to you?"

"You know… You lose one fight…" The man in question said from the chair. "Enough of me, why weren't you waiting for us at the entrance?"

Lionheart pulled a watch from his robes and checked the time. "Oh right! Apologies. I guess time slipped away from me."

"You're joking." Qrow sighed.

"Where is everybody?" Nora wondered.

"Ah you must be the students Qrow mentioned." Lionheart regained his footing.

"Yes sir, Ruby Rose."

"Jaune Arc."

"Nora Valkyrie."

"Lie Ren."

"A pleasure to meet you all. Leonardo Lionheart at your service." He gave a quick bow. "I'm afraid most of my staff is currently away until classes resume."

"What?" Qrow demanded from the seat. "Leo you can't be serious. Who's guarding the relic?"

"Qrow! The children..."

"Already know. I filled them in. What do you mean your staff is away?"

"You filled them in?"

"So is this not going at all like anyone thought it would?" Nora wondered to Ruby.

Well it wasn't going as we planned; the situation seemed fucked.

This is more or less what I thought would happen.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I have to say, Qrow, that this all seems very reckless. Even for you."

"No, reckless is leaving one of the relics completely unguarded. It's not checking in with Oz for ages."

"There was nothing to check in about before the fall of Beacon but since that day Mistral has been in chaos. Vale wasn't the only kingdom to suffer that night. Everyone was watching. Every house in every kingdom saw that poor girl ripped to pieces, saw monsters crawling over the city, Atlesian Knights attacking citizens, and then nothing. You could feel the dread in the air. With all that negativity you can imagine what it was like when the Grimm came for us. Mistral's controlled territory is the widest reaching in the world you know, and that makes it infinitely hard to protect. We lost so many great huntsmen. Teachers from this very institution. And it's only gotten worse." Lionheart finished.

"What do you mean?" Ruby wondered.

"We may have dealt with the Grimm but the Mistral council is still at odds with representatives from Atlas. First it was the dust embargo. Now it's the closing of borders. I'm not sure what happened to James in Vale but it seems to have only worsened some of his more unfortunate tendencies." He sighed. "On top of everything we still don't know where the spring maiden is."

"All the more reason we need huntsmen and huntresses here."

"Okay! Okay. Things are bad. They're bad." Ruby glared at her uncle. "But we can figure this out. Why is the spring maiden so important?"

"I thought you filled them in." Leonardo jabbed.

"Mostly filled in. Look there's a lot to cover, okay?" Qrow drew his flask. "I quit teaching for a reason." He took a long drink and Lionheart sat down.

"The four maidens are capable of performing feats of magic. And they are the only ones capable of reaching the relics."

"What?" I wondered aloud. Tightening my grip on Qrow's chair. He tried to swivel to look at me before giving up.

"The relics are each locked inside a chamber that can only be opened by a specific maiden. Winter for the gift of Creation, Summer for Destruction, Fall for Choice, and Spring for Knowledge. Spring is the problem."

"What happened to her?" Ren interjected.

"She was determined at first when she inherited her powers. But the weight of responsibility proved to be too much for the child. She ran. Abandoned her training, everyone. That was over a decade ago. There's no telling where she could be now."

"I know. At least I have a pretty good idea," Qrow began.

"Are you serious?"

"It's not exactly good news."

"What are you talking about, after all these years."

"I did some digging around. Looks like after spring ran away she was picked up by the Khans, specifically the Branwens."

"Raven." Leo murmured.

"Yang's Mom?" I tried to confirm.

"That's right."

Qrow set his scroll on the desk and pulled up a map. That's about where they've set up their main camp. It's where they fall back to after raids and scouting missions. Raven has managed to gather a lot of followers since she returned to the tribe. I'm sure when the spring maiden showed up they only made things easier."

"Well, Qrow, I've got to hand it to you. With these coordinates we can mount a retrieval force and head out in a few weeks."

"A few weeks?"

"That's right."

"Leo, maybe you didn't hear me. My sister has the spring maiden and I know where she is. We need to go as soon as possible."

"And perhaps you didn't hear me. This kingdom is in shambles. As soon as possible does not mean tomorrow. It means as soon as I can convince the rest of the council that Khatun Branwen is a greater threat than the Grimm. Unfortunately bandit tribes aren't at the top of their list of priorities. Especially with the threat of war just on the horizon."

"What about unified bandit nations. She's going by Khagan, now." I interjected.

"Khagan Branwen…" Lionheart murmured before he was interrupted.

"Then damn the council we'll do it ourselves. You and I are trained huntsmen and these kids aren't exactly pushovers."

"Qrow…" Leo looked down at Qrows absent legs, then quickly back up to his face.

Qrow struggled. "You're right. I… I forgot." Ouch. "We're working on it. We're doing the best we can."

"I'm sure you are. I'm doing the same." Leo's voice was much more gentle. "Myself and these kids cannot defeat your sister, a bandit tribe, and a maiden. You should focus on healing, much like the kingdom."

"What about Cinder, she came from Haven. Do you have anything on her?" I demanded.

"We pulled her, Mercury Black's and Emerald Sustrai's files after Blackout-Day. Nothing but lies and forgeries."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Well I can't say this has been a warm reunion Leo."

"I'm sorry. I know you've all traveled a long way. But I will do everything I can to help."

"Sure. We'll stay in the city for the time being. Stay in touch. Let's go kids."

"It was nice meeting you." Ruby parted with as we filtered out of the room.

"Likewise."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"What do you mean you don't have any range."

"I have eight-ish feet of range with this thing." I gestured to the weapon on my back as I rolled Qrow up to the bar.

"I mean a gun, kid."

"I don't like guns."

"What do you do when the other guy has a gun?"

"I have a bigass shield."

"Look I can show you some of what I know. It should help. What do you say?"

Ruby had convinced him to mentor me, then. That was fine. I needed the teaching and Qrow's weapon was a bit like mine. His experience also eclipsed mine by shades. "I don't have much choice."

"That's the spirit. Speaking of spirits, two whiskeys on the rocks." He ordered.

"Should you be drinking that much?" he did loose a bit of weight recently.

"I'm not. You're drinking with me."

"I'm the designated driver."

"You're my designated roller at best."

"I don't have much in this either, do I?" The bartender, overhearing us, carded me. I handed him my ID while Qrow took the drinks. I suppose I was a match for the guy in the picture so the barkeep handed it back with just a single nod. "So, you mentioned some plan to get some legs?"

I figured he'd appreciate some brutal candor. It seemed his style.

"I did. It's sort of something that Ruby doesn't need to know the details on."

"Oh I don't like that."

"Relax. A quick trip to some of the lower levels and a deal with an old friend. And after that I should be walking again."

"Oh I really don't like that." I sighed. "I'm not sure I can handle any more meetings with your friends, let alone secret dealings with what are probably criminals."

"Cute." He swirled his glass for a moment and I listened to the ice clink against the glass. "Well I don't like not having legs or a weapon. This should solve at least one of those. Besides, my understanding was that you're a bit of a criminal yourself."

"It was self defense." Sorta. He had a weapon and was running at me. That counted.

"I meant how you snuck into Beacon. Ruby mentioned it. But what were you talking about?"

"I uh, I killed a guy. With my semblance. Sort of ripped him in half."

"Stone cold killer. Who would have thought?"

"I don't know if I'd say that." I took a long drink on an empty stomach and my vision blurred fairly fast afterwards.

Qrow paused. "Did you cry?"

"Uh, no?"

"I cried the first time I killed someone. That makes you stone cold."

"Look," I searched my brain. "What sort of favors are we talking about?"

"Probably running drugs. I've done it before for her for some information."

"What kind of drugs?"

"Does it matter?"

"It will when Ruby finds out. So is it just greens or something harder, like ether?"

"I don't know yet, kid."

"Well, Ruby ran off with the last of our Lien to repair Harbinger." I took another drink and grimaced. I ignored his low chuckle at me. "So that's one of those problems down."

"Yeah. Just need to walk again and I'll be right as rain. So, we just need to get a favor from somebody on the lower levels. Now the reason I picked you is because I figured you were up to do something criminal, am I wrong? You're a murderer."

I groaned and slammed the last of my whisky. I hadn't realized I'd gone through it so fast.

"Excuse me?" A younger looking dude in farm hand attire approached our table. We looked at him, then at each other.

"Aren't you a little young to be in here, pipsqueak." Qrow wondered.

To be fair, the dude looked younger than me and was about five two. A solid maybe on that five two. He was well under one hundred eighty centimeters but he didn't have a drink in his hand so it was probably fine. Probably. I wasn't sure about the rules of a bar like this. Or any bar really.

"Shut up I'm getting there." He said to the air next to him.

Okay. Where was the wire?

Qrow didn't seem put off by this. Instead he wheeled himself around to fully face the guy.

Sure. Why not?

"I'm supposed to tell you, I'd like my cane back."

What the fresh fuck?

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	20. Sector 7 II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I used to go for jogs with Pyrrha.

Just around Beacon campus. I didn't read much into it at the time. I really didn't. I was mostly focused on getting enough oxygen and afterwards enough breakfast to read into how she probably wanted me to see her body in action. It wasn't like I didn't get to see her in action in Glynda's class and our training sessions, but still. I didn't look much into it.

With Ruby, jogging through the waterfalls of Mistral until we stopped to get smoothies and talk shop, it was kind of hard to miss how her body flowed. Maybe it was a speedster thing, maybe I was more awake, maybe I was less of a total moron, but it was an experience chasing her through the Mistrali gardens in her workout clothes. An experience.

Eventually she took mercy on my tired soul and lungs at a place she must have looked up in her scroll to get blended fresh fruit. It was delicious after so long rationing everything.

"So that was fun." She stretched breezily and in that moment I'd never, well hated was a little strong, but I certainly never disliked her more as I wheezed for breath. I'd insisted that I have a weapon on me which meant my bastard sword was strapped to my back and had given my run asymmetry.

I took a long smooth drink of smoothy. She was so lucky she ordered me strawberry, pineapple, and vanilla. Plus she was damn cute. I suspected she knew it too.

"What did you and my uncle talk about over drinks? Must have been interesting to get you so stumbly."

"I wasn't stumbly." I defended insistently.

"You were." She teased. "You and him stumbled all over the place when you brought that new guy back."

New guy. Like she wasn't already chummy with Oscar Pine, better known as Ozpin. She shared her comics with the guy. I didn't jealously suck on my straw at the thought. Well, he would never have what we have anyway. "Qrow and I talked about a way to get him some legs."

"Oh really?"

"Unfortunately it probably involves doing some shady shit." She hit me for the swear. It was light, with the back of her hand. More like she was grazing my bicep than hitting me. It made me want to swear again more than anything else just to get her to touch me.

"I thought you wanted to avoid stuff like that."

"I did but your uncle really needs a new pair of feet."

She sighed at that. "You two are going to get along so well."

"I appreciate what you did with him, by the way."

She innocently cocked her head at me, the damsel. "What did I do?"

"You convinced him to teach me."

"Well he did used to be a teacher."

"Thanks Rubes. I really need it."

"So you'll be up for some fighting later?" She jabbed my sides where she knew I was ticklish. "Up for a bit of one on one?"

"Oh you better believe I'd go one on one with you anytime." I gave her a kiss to emphasize and she turned scarlet. She looked away, brushing her hair from her face and taking a long drink to calm down which only made me want to do it again.

So I did. I ran my tongue across her lips and into her mouth and she leaned into me in a really self-satisfying way. I pulled back a chair behind her and pushed her down into it. As I did, I pulled back and kissed her forehead. She giggled and flushed even more red, looking up at me with big silver eyes.

_Fuck me. _

Her sweat, light across her scalp tasted as sweet as my smoothy.

I licked my lips looking down at her. "Stop it." She blushed. "I'm trying to focus. You're not helping"

"Yeah well me too. You can't just be there looking like-" Sex. She looked like sex. "Like really, really good and expect me to do nothing." She made me remember that night in the woods where we shared our first ride. It was unforgettable, burned into my memory more than anything I'd ever experienced. I wanted it again. I was hungry for it again.

"Yeah well you need to tell me what you and my uncle are planning, still." She must have heard it in my voice; maybe it turned more husky than I meant it to. I put the cold smoothy in my lap because the demure sound of her voice and her smell and taste was seriously driving me nuts.

_Embrace the cold, little Jaune._

"I'm not sure yet. Probably some kind of drug run to be honest."

"What kind of drugs." Her eyes and nostrils narrowed and the demure sound was gone. I would kill to bring it back.

"Just greens, probably." I lied, like a fucking liar. "About Ozpin…"

"You don't trust him."

Was I really that obvious? "No. No I don't. I think he'll get you, or Ren, or Nora killed. I think he's hiding something, besides."

She nodded along. "Well what about you?" What the fuck about me? "Besides what could he be hiding?"

"The truth. Whatever that may be. What do we actually know about Mother besides she's evil?"

"Mother?" She wondered at me.

I frowned. "Mother?"

"I don't know. You said it."

"I meant Salem. Slip of the tongue. The point is we don't know anything about either of them. Ozpin seems to have some sort of plan but I trust it about as much as I trust his last one."

"His plan with Pyrrha." She confirmed. I'd told her about the girl in the tube and when Qrow had spilled his guts about the maidens, I'd pieced what they had planned together. In reality I was still warming up to Qrow. At least he hadn't used Ruby as bait or something.

Pyrrha, though, was dead because of Ozpin. She was dead. My friend was dead.

Qrow had a perfectly good reason to not join up with us in his scouting and his semblance. "Well what about Lionheart?"

"I trust him even less." If that was possible. "Hell, Ozpin doesn't even trust Lionheart. You heard him. He's disobeying Ozpin's orders. Who knows what that means. How did Cinder and her allies slip past him? Cinder isn't exactly a normal student. Speaking of, I shouldn't have been able to get past Ozpin either. I could have gotten somebody killed."

"Well what was in your forgeries?"

I thought hard. And harder. And was coming up blank. "I have no idea. I can't remember." I scratched my head. "Must have been convincing or else after day one, I should have been out. It doesn't make any sense. I was total garbage."

She reached out and took my hand. "You weren't garbage. Maybe he saw the potential in you." She stroked my fingers.

I shook my head. "None of this is adding up." I squeezed her hand back.

"You'll be safe with what you do with my uncle, though, won't you?"

"Of course. We're heading out this evening to even see if we can work out a deal. You'll see me back tonight. Tomorrow at the latest. And if you don't you'll at least hear from me."

She anxiously slurped her smoothy to empty. Then she started to eye mine and I forked it over. She seriously burned twice as many calories as a normal person. If not more. She was a hungry little devil.

"I don't like this." She mumbled into her new drink.

"I figured you wouldn't but what choice do we have? We need your uncle back to one hundred percent, regardless of Ozpin's schemes."

"If you need me I'll be around finding the parts for Harbinger. Just a call away."

I watched her drink in silence as she absorbed what I had told her. "About your uncle, does he know about us?"

She shook her head and swallowed some smoothy.

"Do you want him to?"

She thought about it for a moment. Then she shook her head. Then shrugged. When she finally pulled the straw from her mouth she said "If he finds out, that's fine. I don't want us to be a secret or anything. And it's not like I'm embarrassed by you. He just gets a little overprotective. I'd like him to get to know you a little better, if possible. He does seem to like you but...If he finds out he finds out, I guess."

I nodded. Hey, it was her decision.

When she finally stood up from our table I followed suite without hesitation. "Come on," she said, "Ren and Nora should be up. We can get some practice in before you head off." I groaned because I knew she was going to make me run again but she flashed me a million watt smile and I felt my load lighten. Her eyes flicked down to my pants then back up to my eyes knowingly. "Plus if we make it back fast enough we can, well, there's only one shower. We may have to share."

The little devil.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Bladebeam, bladebeam, bladebeam, bladebeam."

"I'm bladebeaming."

"You're clearly not."

"Well maybe if you did more than repeat it over and over again and gave me some actual instructions."

"Make a beam with your blade."

"I'm mounting in dislike for you."

"Look, I already told you to focus and project your aura. My niece told me you should have plenty and you're already close enough."

I sighed and swept my sword at my target. A poor unscathed tree. Nothing happened, yet again. The tree remained unscratched.

Qrow took a drink from his wheelchair and slouched over.

"If you weren't in a wheelchair I'd dump you on the ground," I grumbled.

"If I wasn't in this chair I could kick your ass."

"Let me try with my semblance."

"And what is your semblance?" Qrow sounded genuinely curious.

"It makes me better."

"It makes you better at what?"

"Everything. Near as I can tell."

I charged it by standing still and focusing. Then I whipped the broadsword around my body easily as the blue glow swept over my body. I cast my sword at the target and nothing happened. I did it twice more before I felt the power start to fade. I glid towards the tree and in that baseball style swing cut straight through it, growling in frustration.

"That doesn't count." Qrow informed me helpfully. "And now we don't have a target."

"I get it. And sure we do. The tree is just on its side."

"Do you get it?" He took another long day drink. "You know we're renting this place, right."

"I get it."

"Does it mess with your emotions at all?"

"Does what?"

"Your semblance you… neanderthal." He struggled for an insult for a moment before settling. "My other niece's is a bit like yours and it fucks with her emotions. It's tied to them, even."

"No. I'm just frustrated."

"Well put that frustration towards bladebeaming. You really are a sitting duck the way you fight without a gun. You'll die and Ruby will have nightmares and who do you think will have to deal with that? Me. I will. So get it together and bladebeam."

I sighed and focused my aura. I felt it run down my hands and into my blade and make it light up gold. I'd gotten this far before now. I just couldn't get the aura to cascade outwards. I swept my sword at the fallen tree and once again nothing happened.

"Show me." I walked over and as I did I swept the sword to my back and drew the bastard sword from the shield. I handed that to him by the extended hilt.

"The weight and balance of it is good so you don't have a problem there. You're just messing up."

Ah. Good. I was the problem. I suspected as much.

"Show me." I demanded.

He swept the sword at the fallen tree and a white slash extended outwards and shook it, leaving branches cleaved from the pine in a wave of brief white. He wobbled in the chair from the motion and I reached down and caught one of the handles.

It wasn't anything like the golden, aura colored wave I was going for.

I took the sword back and a waved it at the tree. A white colored wave hit the tree much more softly than Qrow's. It was small, though fast moving. I frowned. I didn't really like it.

"There you go. Must be one of those learn by example types. Well, once I'm up again I'll have some lessons you can learn quickly, how's that?"

"Thank you." I meant it too. I was sure he was going to beat me into the ground over and over but that was how I learned best.

I waved my sword from the ground upwards and a golden wave of fire the color of my natural aura erupted from the sword and raced towards the stump. It was much slower moving but it would cover me more and it collided much more intensely than the razor thin attack I had managed. It was vastly weaker than Qrow's attack, even from his chair.

This was good. It was fantastic, even. Who needed guns? I wanted to try it with my semblance. I sat there and charged it to completion and this time the wave was blue as it raced even faster to the target. Where it collided it trapped the tree in a series of smaller cuts, like Qrow's, before collapsing with an audible pop that I was sure wouldn't be comfortable for anybody caught in the vortex.

Any reasonable enemy would be able to dodge it and it was still vastly weaker than I'd like, but practice would make perfect and a ranged attack like this one would save my life.

"Your semblance sure is something else. Does it always let you make leaps like that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You weren't even close a few hours ago. Now you managed something even if it wasn't particularly good. Is it just like that with you?"

"I just know how to practice and push myself. You know? Had to just to keep up."

"I think I get it. Well keep practicing and pushing yourself, then."

"Bladebeam, bladebeam, bladebeam."

"What are you two up to?" Ruby waltzed out on us to find me covered and sweat and Qrow day drunk.

Our shower had been pretty much pointless as far as keeping me clean went; that was to say I was already sweaty again.

"Qrow was teaching me his bladebeam." I answered when it became clear he wasn't going to be the one responding. His mouth was otherwise occupied with liquor.

"Any luck?"

"Some." I granted her.

"Well Ren and Nora will be out soon for some doubles practice but I figured you and I could go a few rounds in the meantime."

Ruby drew her blade, rotating with the motion until she was facing me with the scythe extended. On the activation of my semblance I rushed to bash her with the kite shield. I knew she would dodge of course. A blur of petals and she was behind me.

I slashed towards her even as she hovered upside down behind me, prepared to shoot me in the back of the head. She knew I could take it. It was still rude, though, so I tried to bisect her and forced her to disappear before she could take the shot.

I rushed her when she landed, trying to get her in the moments before she resolidified when I knew she was most vulnerable. Hey, I had to make it count. I bounced her off the ground but she turned it into an elegant roll.

I rushed her like I meant it and swept the sword at her. Then, when she leapt back I took a moment to charge my semblance, I knew it meant trading advantage with her but hopefully it would mean giving me a little more advantage later.

She recognized it and blitzed me. She slapped me up a little, not going to lie, but when I hit my head against the tree stump my semblance activated and I rolled to my feet in a mean blur. I lept at her, sweeping my sword vertically and rushing her.

She made an adorable "eep" noise that made me not only grin, but made me want to kiss her. Then I swept to her next location. Then the next. She just couldn't get away completely and establish her own advantage. I swung again and she turned to complete petals this time, I was there too. I hit her with my kite shield, spending Limit with it.

She skipped across the ground hard.

This was it. It was ideal to _use _Limit as well as spend it.

She bounced across the ground when the kite smacked her whole body. Rather than start charging my next Limit or pursue her attempts to get back to neutral I checked her aura with a roll of my wrist. It was already turning yellow from my attacks and how much she had spent just trying to dodge me.

When she got up I dashed forwards, jumped and slashed twice horizontally with the bastard swords. She turned to petals and teleported behind me. "Almost." She teased me. She caught me around the waist with her scythe and fired. The option yanked me into the ground by the blade.

She showed me no mercy and kicked me back and forth across the arena until Ren and Nora decided to show up. My semblance returned when they did so I had nothing to do but turn to them and let the power fade, leaning against my sword as I did.

"Getting in some training?" Nora wondered. "Mind if we join you?"

"Of course not." Ruby kicked my shin. "Don't treat her like that."

I moved the sword so it rested against my shoulder but at the same time I said "harder."

I set the tip of my shield in the dirt and didn't get any complaints just a mild glare. "How do we want to do things?"

"Nora and I against the two of you?" Ren proposed to a general agreement.

The new kid came waltzing down the steps of the house and plopped down to watch us fight. I stood next to Ruby charging my semblance while she took potshots at their attempts to approach us. Once I had it I engaged Nora in a rush, blocking oncoming grenades with my shield until I could get an attack off with my semblance which she tried desperately to avoid.

In the meantime Ruby used her speed to overwhelm Ren in addition to her incredible range. They matched our tempo and gave up their assault and went onto the defense to try and manage my semblance. They regrouped and Ruby and I made to corner them against the far edge of the yard so that I could get an attack off with my semblance.

They timed me out and when my power faded Ruby and I were forced back on the defense. My semblance timed the ebb and flow of the match and allowed us to dictate when we would attack but was also clear when we were in more of a disadvantage. We traded partners and I shoved Ren back with my shield.

"Do you intend to just camp us out with your semblance."

"Its a legitimate strategy." I shoved against his blades. "Besides you're not using your semblance against us."

He closed his eyes and I felt his aura wash over me. Anger flooded through me. Directionless and without real purpose for this fight. Then I felt it fade as I made to hack at him with what was probably too much aggression.

"Thats why. My ability to control another's emotions is beyond the scope of even the most extensive training match."

He made to sweep my leg but I blocked low with the shield and ate a punch to the face. He maneuvered a dagger behind my shoulder and shoved his hip into my side and threw me to the ground over his body. It was very fancy and I'm sure he practiced it a lot but all it really did was activate my semblance and put him on the back foot.

"Keep Nora out of the way!" I called to Ruby. She blocked any attempt by Nora to approach and help mitigate my semblance. I had him cornered and I had resources.

I jumped in place like I was going to hammer him with my sword or shield and when he blocked high I went low, I swept his feet out from under him and jumped bringing the sword down on his falling form with both hands for real.

I knocked the aura out of him with the charge and that seemed to be the end of our match.

"From what I remember you've all shown signs of improvement." Oscar said to the side. As though I had anywhere to go but up from where I'd been at Beacon. "Have you given any thought to what Ozpin said about fighting without your weapons?"

"Some." Pyrrha had trained me in fisticuffs a little and I roomed with Ren who was a martial artist. He didn't need the help with that. Instead he went to meditate and recover his aura.

"What about you, Ms. Rose."

"I already told you to call me Ruby. And I suppose we could do a few rounds. Are you joining us."

"That was our hope. I mean my hope. I meant it was Ozpin's plan and I'm going along with it."

I stepped to the side with Nora and watched the two go at it for a while. "Man, Oz wasn't kidding. Oscar is picking up on this stuff fast."

Oscar hit Ruby in the face. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry." He'd need to get over hitting women though.

That sounded really bad but it would only get him hurt worse in my experience. Estrogen was a hell of a drug and huntresses weren't no joke. True to form, Ruby knocked him off his feet.

"Yes! I did it!" Ruby celebrated. "Oscar?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Oscar said to the air from his position on the ground. He must be having some private conversation with Ozpin, then. He got to his feet and his eyes glowed slightly in that way which indicated Ozpin was taking over. "Not bad Ms. Rose. But Oscar doesn't have the years of training that you do. Or I do." He closed his eyes and green waves washed over him, his aura coming into place.

"Oh, well maybe we should take a break" Ozpin just raised Oscar's fists.

When they clashed again, they sparred only briefly before he ended things with a headbutt.

"Next time you throw a left cross remember to push off with the appropriate foot. And as always do be aware of openings."

Qrow rolled up to me. "You ready to go kid."

I watched Oscar collapse as Ozpin released him . "Yeah, its about that time."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	21. Sector 7 III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Alright kid, just follow my lead and stay quiet unless someone asks you something."

"Got it."

"Don't screw this up for us."

"Are you done?"

Dust crystals, weapons, and all other kinds of malicious paraphernalia were sold in the lower levels of Mistral beneath wired poles and under shady market stalls. The entire place was pretty openly criminal with people who were wearing masks purchasing put together bombs in damn near broad daylight. Or what counted for daylight down here.

We followed a spider's web marking on a wall into a dimly lit bar in which the only barrier between the inside and the elements was a flap with a Mistrali Flag on it. As though that was fooling anybody.

I took a look around the inside and noted several dozen people in similar purple drab. As if that weren't enough, many people inside had that same spider web symbol tattooed to their forearms, bicep, or even their neck. I knew enough about gangs to know one when I saw one being so open.

I wheeled Qrow in.

"That's far enough now sweetheart."

A woman sat alone at a table with two of what were clearly bodyguards on either side of her. I stopped pushing Qrow's chair and held up my hands in surrender. I wasn't about to start anything, even if some of the people we had passed were clearly on something and had glints in their eyes that made me want to draw my weapon.

Ether I hoped, but perhaps even Hyper was on the table. Literally on the table as a dude did a line of white powder nearby.

I made no move towards my weapon anyways because it wasn't like I could defend Qrow or myself in a tight space like this. We were very outnumbered and probably outgunned and entirely at the mercy of our hosts. I like to believe that I was alright in a fight, which was to say maybe I could take the lady's two body guards if it was just the three of us and I managed something clever. This was something different. We were surrounded and they were in front of us, behind us, to either side, and, just to make things worse, above us. The place had two floors that I could see.

"Well if it isn't Qrow Branwen. It's been a long time and you have gotten much shorter."

"You know, you loose one fucking fight."

"And whose this? Some new protege or apprentice?"

The bodyguards came up to search me and I cooperatively handed over my sword and shield to the girl who staggered under its weight for a second before reclaiming her balance. "Jaune Arc." I introduced myself as the dude patted me down. He came away with some fire crystals and a swiss army knife. Nothing crazy for a place like this; I mean probably. I didn't frequently search people who frequented these places.

"Didn't answer my question, hun." She probed. Jabbing at me with the spoon she held in a pudgy hand.

"He's teaching me, yes ma'am."

"Good boy. You can put those arms down." I did as she directed. "Now I'm sure you're not here just to catch up with me, now are you?"

"I'm not no." Qrow wiggled his stumps. I almost laughed. "I need a set of prosthetics, Atlesian or Valean or good enough for hunters."

Would his prosthetics transform with him or-

"It'll cost you."

I'm sure it'll be fine. Its magic so why not? I couldn't think of a good reason why his new legs wouldn't transform with him and Ozpin hadn't said anything. Not that that meant anything.

"We don't have much Lien."

"Oh Mr. Branwen. Lien is how I run my business."

"You also run it with favors and errands."

"A favor from the great Qrow Branwen." She took a long drag of either tobacco or perhaps even some greens. It smelled most like tobacco, I think though. "It would mean a lot more if he was capable of walking."

"You provide the legs and I'll do the walking. And if you don't like that then the kid isn't half bad in a fight either."

"Hmm." She pondered. "Okay." She said with a sly smile. The dude handed me back my switchblade and crystals and the girl handed back my harness with my bigger blades sheathed as though that was some well rehearsed signal.

"I'll need real surgery." Qrow admitted begrudgingly. "Not those ones you just attach and pull off. I'll need them grafted on."

"Well that'll just cost you extra. Two favors."

"Lets talk it over. Hey kid."

"Hm?" I wondered.

"Why don't you wait at the bar while we talk. You're making me nervous just standing behind me."

"Alright. Sure." Why not?

I mosied up to the bar. The bartender in purple had a kukuri and some light armor. He didn't card me or anything, just looked across the rosy counter towards me. "Whisky on the rocks." Keep it familiar, keep it simple, keep it dumb, or else you'll end up under some ganglord's thumb.

"Who's this Melanie?"

"I don't know Miltiades, some new huntsman."

"He's decent looking."

"Tall, too."

I looked around. There were two girls looking at me. They had dark hair and pale eyes. I looked them up and down. "Are you talking to me?" One had a pair of silver blades attached to white boots to match the overall assemble of a white dress. The other had red claws strapped to her back. The red claws matched a tighter red dress than the girl in white who could only be a sister. Maybe a cousin if I was stretching.

They looked damn near identical, though, so I was really stretching.

"Who else would we be talking to?" I looked around, the girl in white made a fair point. There was nobody even close to me.

"So what brings a huntsman like you down here."

"I'm with him." I pointed to Qrow, not seeing any point to lying. I pushed him into this place afterall. "Need to get him back on his feet but we're a little short on cash."

"And what is he to you?" The girl in red asked.

"He's not much, really." I answered vaguely. "I didn't catch your names."

"I'm Melanie Malachite." The girl in white introduced. "And this is-"

"Miltia." The other finished. Malachite, like the woman in charge. Well I'd better be polite and not fuck things up.

"Well, can I get the two of you a drink? Or drinks, rather?" I doubted they would be sharing.

Instead they just giggled a little at me. Cute girls laughing at me was nothing new though and after a few years it meant surprisingly little. Girls like this tended to laugh like that. It would be better for my sanity if I didn't take it personally.

"I thought you were short on cash." Miltia returned.

"Short on cash for a pair of legs. Not for three drinks." I lifted my glass to my lips. It was already empty and the glass clinked around in no liquid. "Make that four drinks. What'll you two have?"

"A white russian," Miltia said.

"A hurricane."

I ordered for them and another whiskey for me. Then I slid the red drink to the girl in white and the white drink to the girl in red. I was sixty percent sure they were fucking with me. Somehow.

But they took drinks from their cocktails with a familiarity that threw me off. Maybe they did drink these exact drinks a bit. I nursed my own, making sure to take it slower on my second glass of something straight.

The last thing Qrow and I needed was for me to be wasted.

"So where are you from?" Melanie pulled back from her red drink and bounced out the words. I hope she wasn't clumsy because that drink would stain like a nightmare.

"Vale. I uh, used to go to Beacon." I took my weapons off my back and set them on the stool to my left. The stool on my right was occupied by Miltia.

"We're from Vale too." Miltia said.

"Not really the biggest fans of Beacon students but we can make an exception."

"Lucky me." I slipped. "Well the 'ex-Beacon student' is kinda important anyways."

"But we left with the collapse." Melanie added.

"Decided it just wasn't safe enough." Miltia clarified.

"Makes sense. I left pretty quickly after it happened myself. How did you two get here then?"

"Airship." Miltia informed me.

"Our parents own several so we just flew." Sisters, then.

"Must have been nice."

"Sounds like there's a story to how you got here." Miltia pressed.

"I walked, rode horses, and took a train. Just extra steps comparatively. More monsters, you know?"

Melanie blinked. "You ride horses?"

"Well aren't you a regular old fashioned knight." She eyed me in my thick armor. She may be reading into my look and figuring some other things.

"I had to learn on the way. It's not like that."

"Did Qrow Branwen teach you?"

"You two know Qrow?"

"We know about Qrow." Miltia corrected.

"Some hunters are famous like that."

"Him and his sister are both well known but there are others too."

"Winter Schnee, Glynda Goodwitch, General Ironwood." Melanie counted.

"Well Qrow didn't teach me that but I suppose he is mentoring me in other things."

"Like what?" Miltia asked.

"Like being a better fighter, I guess. He knows a lot about how to kill things, and not much else to be completely honest with you." I reached the bottom of my drink and debated with myself before ordering another one. I was on the heavy side anyways, so it should be fine? "I really try not to take his advice on other things."

"You're a heavy drinker." Melanie watched me order more whiskey.

"Yeah. That's one of those things I really don't want to pick up from Qrow but it might be too late. I might have the sort of addictive personality that leans that way."

"You're not sure?"

"I'm really not the kind of guy that goes to bars much."

"You seem like a regular to bar or club life."

"Yeah. With the right haircut you could be a plain old ladykiller."

I blushed. "I don't think so."

"Come on."

"Nobody likes a good-looking guy with no confidence."

"Nobody likes a guy with the wrong kind of confidence either. Trust me on that one." I sucked on my third drink. My vision was getting a little shaky and my lips and face a little looser. "Where did you girls train?"

"Train?"

"Get your huntswomen training, I mean."

"Huntswomen." Miltia giggled.

"I know he's so careful." Melanie laughed back.

"Listen, I have gotten my ass beat by so many women that it pays to jump through that kind of hoop."

"We don't have any formal training." Miltia returned to the previous question.

"We're from the mean streets of Vale."

"We're with the gang so…" Miltia finished.

"I see." I nodded along.

"You think it doesn't count?" Melanie prompted.

"It's probably more real than any training someone gets at like, Signal." I disagreed with her implication. ."My real training came from after Beacon fell, in the wild. Hunting criminals and real Grimm instead of practice dummies or training partners."

"Plus whatever Branwen is teaching you."

"Eh." I managed. "The chair happened around the same time that I met him. Most of the training he has given me has been verbal rather than hands on. All, really." I slurred slightly.

"You seem perfectly capable anyways."

"Maybe gang life would suit you."

I watched Miltia trade drinks with Melanie. They took a pull from the others' drink in perfect synchronization. At my look she leaned over. "We don't mind sharing things." She winked.

"Uh huh." I managed stupidly.

"Are you done flirting." Qrow had rolled up on me without me noticing. No mean feat from the chair.

"I really wouldn't know flirting if it walked up and stabbed me in the front."

"Well stop it. Come on. I worked out our favors from Lil' Miss Malachite." I said my valedictions, grabbed my tools, and wheeled him back over to the woman in charge.

"So what's the first favor?" I wondered.

"I need someone killed." She splayed her hands across the table. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Well it depends on who it is, doesn't it."

"Does it?" She pressed me.

"Of course. It matters who it is to you too."

"Smart boy. It's a dust witch in a rival gang named Eminence Kramer."

"And the second favor?"

"I need information out of one Don Corneo." She took a long drag. "You decide the order. I don't particularly care. After that we'll get Qrow here a new set of legs and the surgery to boot."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	22. Gold Saucer

**This late Valentines special goes out to ~NGD OMEGA~ and Dragon Lord Syed 101 for their constant feedback and support. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

A firm knock came at my and Ren's bedroom door where we were staying in Mistral. We'd been here about a week and had separated back into rooms along gender lines rather than along couples. Much to my disappointment. I missed Ruby's support and I was sure Ren appreciated my nightmares none.

"Come in," I called out. "I'm decent."

Ruby skipped into the room, she was giggling and her face was already flushed red like I'd been kissing her or holding her close. Gods her laugh was so infectious that despite my brooding mood I couldn't help but grin genuinely down at her. She leaned up on her tiptoes at me. I loved the way she had to crane her neck up to look at me when I was just standing and I reached out and took both her hands in just one of mine.

She tried to muffle her excited squeaks to no success. She was adorable like that.

"What's wrong?"

"We're going to spend Valentine's day together."

Oh shit. I was sure I'd forgotten something. She leaned up on her tiptoes and our noses brushed past each other. I put my hands around her waist to support her and she threw her arms around my neck and grinned against my lips.

"I uh- sort of-"

"Not a choice!" She sang across each word against my lips. I kissed her again. I couldn't help the smile that roared on my face. "I planned out our whole day."

I recalled when she stole Weiss's binder to plan out her whole day with her team on the day before our second term restarted. She was the type to make plans but not follow through with them so much if her heart desired something else. My focus was on how she was the type to make those sort of plans, though. I picked her up with one arm and lifted her to shoulder height.

"We're going on a date," she said excitedly.

"What?"

"A da~ate! I'm sure you've heard of it." She bopped my nose from her perch and giggled into her other hand.

"Do you take me for a fool?" I poked her sides and she giggled. I wanted to throw her onto my bed and tickle her senseless but who knows where that would lead. Well, I could guess where poking her sides and ribs until her face flushed red would lead. It wasn't a bad thing for sure.

"No, just a bit mixed up. Did you ever…"

"I didn't. At least nothing that could be considered a real date." Unless you counted our one-on-one training sessions.

"Well come on then. Let's go!" She climbed down off of me, got behind me, and pushed me towards the door.

I let her shove me towards the door with only a small. "Hey." in faux protest.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Step one in Ruby's day date was making cookies together. The house we were staying in had all of the cooking utensils we needed but we had to go out to fetch the ingredients together.

'Had to,' I mentally mocked myself. Really it was a part of our date. Just another way we would spend time together.

Ruby almost had to reach upwards to hold my hand as we went from stall to stall finding eggs, flower, and of course chocolate to make her favorite confection. I think she knew that I didn't particularly care what we were making and took it on herself to decide the details.

It wasn't that I didn't care about making things with her and spending time with her, it was that I really didn't care what we were making and I think she knew that as she dragged me from stall to stall.

Filling up a basket under her arm with brown and white sugar from an elderly woman with horns under a hat and smile wrinkles she spun through the crowd and talked to people with a grace I could only envy and watch in awe.

"How big should we make them?" She wondered, dragging me through the crowded streets. We passed a couple with a small bonsai tree grown into the shape of a heart. "Do you think we can make them huge and heart shaped?"

"If you want the edges burnt then yes. But if we make a bunch of small ones it should be doable."

"Hmm." She pursued her lips and tapped them with her fingers. I pushed her fingers out of the way and made to cup her face and kiss her but with a flicker of petals she escaped my grasp. "Hey you."

"Me." I agreed solemnly. Like it was a curse that rested on my whole family.

"I'm trying to stay focused."

"You're the one with the kissable lips." I complained but I made no move to try and kiss her again as she put the final ingredients in her adorable red ribboned little basket.

"Come on. We need to finish these up back at the house." She led me back through the many layered gardens and back to the little place we were staying in.

It was suspiciously empty of Ren and Nora and I had to wonder what activities Nora had dragged Ren off to in the tiered gardens of Mistral.

Mistral was a beautiful place, I could confess. So long as you stayed out of the lower levels like Qrow had recommended. There were waterfalls and fountains and gardens of all sizes and I was sure that the beauty of the place did something to combat the Grimm.

"Come on!" She whined at me from the kitchen. "This is just phase one, we need to wrap up the other parts before the public fireworks."

"There are phases to this scheme of yours?" I was sure that public fireworks did something to combat the Grimm and negativity too.

"Of course. All good plans have phases."

I slid into the kitchen behind her and took out a cookie sheet and greased it while she began to carefully lay out her ingredients from her basket.

"You go right here." She happily murmured to the foodstuffs. "And you go right here. And you right here." She layed out the eggs and flower. I pushed her against the counter, grabbing her from behind. I wasn't able to help myself, I wanted another kiss.

When I spun her around, her face was stuffed full of chocolate chips and she gave me a guilty look before she swallowed her mouthful and I put my tongue in her mouth. I could taste the milk chocolate across her lips and on her tongue and she moaned against my whole body.

"What are you up to?"

"Nothin'." She mumbled guiltily. "You're distracting me again." She whispered. I had her pinned against the counter with my arms and she made no real attempt to escape even though we both knew she could. I slid my hands under her and lifted her so I could kiss her proper. "Jaune we need to hurry."

"We'll get the cookies done." I whispered. "Don't worry."

When I put her down and began mixing some of the carefully measured ingredients in a bowl, she tried to sneak a few mouthfuls of brown and white sugar. I say tried like it was sneaky or she didn't succeed. She dipped the spoon into the sugar and then into her mouth and gave a little sigh in plain sight.

We didn't throw flower at each other but I did try and nail her open mouth with some chocolate chips as we measured out our ingredients. She was following some recipe in her head that I could only guess at the origin of, but she really had it down and didn't have to think long when I asked her how much vanilla to add and when to add it.

Once I thoroughly mixed them, we rolled out little balls of the dough and tried to make the balls vaguely heart-shaped. She had this big self satisfied grin at watching me try and make them so that they would grow into flat hearts.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

A carnival awaited us, built into the cliffs of the middle levels. I wasn't sure what I expected from the crimson speedster, but it should have been something like this. She clutched my arm with both of hers as we walked.

It was phase two of Ruby's great plan, I was sure. She was a little grumpy, though, the edges of some of our cookies had been more brown than she wanted them to be.

"Couldn't we have left our weapons?" I asked.

"First of all how dare you." She wolfishly flicked her hair back. I wanted to kiss her neck but it would involve too much leaning down. Plus she never let me give her hickeys despite how much she loved when I sucked on her jawbone. I still wanted it, though, I'd felt her writhe and heard her moan. She couldn't hide that from me and the gods themselves couldn't take it from me.

She coyishly looked up at me. "This is their date too."

"Ah, a double date."

"Now you're getting it." She was smiling again. Mission accomplished Jaune. We'll be sending you home with a metal.

When she bought our entry tickets I suddenly felt guilty about spending my money on alcoholic drinks in a bar in the lower levels of the city.

"Congratulations!" A voice boomed at us as we entered a red and white tent. Bright lights flickered over us and I almost grabbed my weapon from the shock of it. "You two are our one hundredth couple today! Let's give a round of applause to the lucky lady and her gentleman."

"Um." I tried but Ruby squealed down at my side as applause from other couples poured in at us.

"You two will be the leads in tonight's show!" The announcer mercilessly continued.

"Wha-"

"Oh, now, it's not hard. Just play it however you want to and the rest of the cast will cover up for you." A man in a blue shirt appeared beside me. "Come on, this way."

"This sounds like fun. Let's do it Jaune." There was no arguing with Ruby. Not when she looked up at me, pouted, and metaphorically twisted my arm.

Once backstage I finally got my bearings, a troupe member came up to me and took a look at my get up. "Oh are you a huntsman?" She began strapping a microphone to me.

I managed to nod despite all the commotion. How could I be unafraid of murder and death but still have a little stagefright? Not that I was unafraid of murder and death entirely but the concepts definitely made me less nervous than this.

"Well I'm sure you'll do fine then." The troupe member finished before scurrying off. It was like an anthill back here.

Trumpets began alongside with some narration as the lights dimmed on the stage. "Long, long ago…" Oh boy. It was that fast and loose, was it?

"An evil shadow appeared over the peaceful kingdom of Galdia. Princess Aerith was just kidnapped by the Evil Dragon King, Valvados. What will become of her?"

Yeah, like Ruby needed me to save her. There was some serious role-reversal that needed to happen to resuspend my disbelief.

"Just then, the hero, Alfred, appears!"

Someone whispered, "that's your cue. Get out there." I hurriedly followed their directions and stepped out onto the stage. Maybe I looked a bit heroic in my armor and with my weapons. I could only guess I was so nervous in front of the couple hundred other people in the audience.

A man in some knightly apparel joined me on the stage. "Oh you must be the Legendary Hero Alfred!" He burst out.

When I said nothing he whispered. "Hey it's your line." I looked around to see who he was talking to, then I pointed at myself like a dumbass. "Yeah you."

"Oh!" He repeated. "You must be the Legendary Hero Alfred!"

I thought they were supposed to play around me?

"I know in my soul," the man moved on. "Please, please save princess Aerith! Now please talk to the King!" He finished with a flourish. It could have been my imagination or he emphasized the word 'talk.'

Another man in fake royal blue robes and a crown came rolling out onto the stage as the knights walked into the background. He could only be the King, so I went up to him.

"Oh legendary hero, Alfred. You have come to save my beloved daughter Aeris." Was it Aerith or Aeris? "On the peak of a dangerous mountain dwells the Evil Dragon King, Valvados, who has kidnapped Princess Aeris. But, you can't beat the Evil Dragon King now! Talk to one who can help you."

I glanced back around to find a man in robes next to the Knight. A wizard. I went up to him and he greeted me. "I am the great wizard, Vorman. What do you wish to know?"

"I wish to know the Evil Dragon King's weakness." I enunciated, unsure of myself. I was sure my voice would come out shaky but no one seemed to notice.

"Ah, the weakness of the Evil Dragon King. It must be, it must be…" I waited. "Yes, it must be true love! The power of love is the only weapon that can withstand the fangs of the Evil Dragon King!"

The announcer's voice boomed around me in narration. "Oh what is going to happen next. Oh legendary hero, look!"

A man in a dragon costume swung down from the rafters such that it looked like he was flapping the wings. In his arms was one Ruby Rose. Or I suppose I should say Princess Aerith. The man let loose a very weak roar at me and deposited her on the ground. Or stage. Whatever.

"I am the Evil Dragon King Valvados. I have not harmed the Princess, I have been expecting you!"

Ruby fake swooned on the ground. "Yes, help me Legendary Hero!"

I couldn't help myself. I grinned down at her.

The man in the dragon costume gave me another unconvincing roar. "Here I come, Legendary Hero, Alfred! Yes, I already know your name!"

The wizard spoke up beside me, "and now Legendary Hero here is what will happen to your beloved. A kiss! The power of true love."

To be honest I felt a little uncomfortable kissing Ruby as a spectacle. But it was her plan, phase two or whatever. I picked her up in my arms and kissed her to applause. I felt her smile against me as I did which made me grin, too.

The man in the dragon suit let out a fake scream, "curses, the power of love!" He really fucking said 'curses.' I shit you not.

Then, like a rocket he was yanked into the rafters again. The king took over as I released Ruby and set her on her feet. "Oh look! Love has triumphed! Now let us all return and celebrate."

The stage darkened and all the actors walked off stage, beckoning us to come with them.

The narrator took over again. "Oh, how profound the power of love! And so the Legendary Hero Alfred and the Princess Aerith live on happily ever after."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Oh, that was fun."

"What's next, Rubes." I poked her sides and she bent over giggling. "What's phase three?"

"Phase three is the gondola." She straightened and led me to the ticket booth. "Two please."

"Enjoy the sights of Mistral." The man inside muttered like he had to do it a thousand times. Which he probably did.

"If I timed this right…" Ruby muttered as I took my seat. She made to sit opposite me but I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto the same seat as me as the gondola took off. I kissed her cheek and she flushed red in a way that couldn't be legal.

"If you timed this right what?"

"If I timed this right we'll be high up when the fireworks go off." She finished for me.

We rose above the carnival rides and even up above the highest levels of Mistral. The fireworks went off below and around us, a little loud but nothing like gunfire in our ears. Sparks of yellow, green, purple and blue flared all around us followed by giant red hearts and magenta flickering patterns.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?!" She gasped beside me. "You know at first it bothered me how much I was like Pyrrha."

"I thought-" but she ran me over.

"I mean we look different but we're alike in other ways. Ways that really, really matter. But I am different from her. Things are different. Jaune…"

She trailed off but I had no intention of interrupting her flow.

"Jaune I want to be with you."

"I'm right here."

"I know. I know. What I mean is, I want to _be _with you, though. For the rest of my life. I can't imagine it without you."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	23. Spring Deva II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I left you a hamlet with half a dozen villages. Now you're telling me you need more? Has your recruiting gone so well that you must bolster your numbers with more targets?"

"I just need more targets. The only village left is a fortress and-"

"What do you mean the only village left is a fortress?"

"I'm worried that if I attack I'll lose some of my men. They're much more militaristic than the other villages were." And I didn't have that war asset the large Grimm had made. It meant it would be just me and my people against theirs and I was fewer in number than even those that made up the guard at Higanbana.

Our strategy was never about direct confrontations. I would need to be a village to have the numbers to contest them directly.

"I understand what a fortress is. I don't understand how they can be the only village left."

I shuffled my feet. A sign of weakness, I know.

"Did the Grimm swarm over these villages and destroy them during the black out day panic?"

"No."

"Then you destroyed them."

"Yes, I-"

"You destroyed all of the villages left to you?"

"You told me they are like sheep to us."

Raven scoffed at me. "And one cannot milk dead sheep. What were you thinking? No, it's obvious you had nothing but bloodlust on your mind."

She sat above me on her throne, as though I needed more signs of my submission to her. We were hosted in a rival Khan's base. No tents here, instead we were surrounded by solid stone and woodwork.

A place built over a lifetime.

A sign, still, that despite how I was favored, I was just one Khatun who served the Khagan. One of many in subservience and one that couldn't even host the Khagan.

Further still, I was left begging for her help where others were doing so well they could afford fine gifts for the Khagan and silken animal hides to match Raven's black mane.

I thought about pointing out that one could milk dead sheep, just not for very long, but without new targets my men would start to starve and the sass wouldn't get me anywhere. Then my men would abandon me. I needed Raven's favor to gain new targets, mine were all destroyed save the village Higanbana.

There, they took no chances and had high walls with gunmen equipped with rifles. My men would be torn apart should we attack there. Losses weren't something I could afford either. Not since that blonde huntsman. Further still the Grimm I had used to lay waste to the villages in the valley was absent. I could only blame the blonde huntsman for that too.

He must have slain it then carried on his merry way and I had no idea where to find him to gain vengeance for my lost tool.

"I see that now."

"Oh do you? And I'm supposed to hand over more villages to your onslaught. We play a delicate balance in our raiding."

"I understand. We must raid without drawing the presence of the Grimm. Or at least without drawing too many." I tried to appease her with new lessons learned. I tried to show her that I understood the error of my slaughter.

"Hm. Time will tell if you do truly understand and are actually competent enough to play the game."

"Please I need new targets-"

"Targets I'm supposed to take from other Khans and hand over to you? You already had so many." The Khagan played the same game I did, just on an even grander scale. She had to keep her Khans happy the same way I was supposed to keep my men happy, thus forming a chain of loyal command. If I couldn't find a way to bridge the gap then I would just be another failed leader. I looked down at my feet thinking hard.

"I will give you new targets." I looked up at Raven. "You've been loyal and it is… a learning process. The balance we play... the selection of who and when and how to strike is difficult for even the most experienced of Khans. You are young. You can afford this stain on your record. But you must first fetch something for me."

"Anything," I murmured. "Thank you."

She waved off my thanks.

"A cargo ship went down over Lake Matsu. Atlesian design, clearly. It fell in your territory. You will strip it for anything of value and bring it to me as a gift. A penance for your mistake."

It would be hard. My men already rebelled under my thumb. But not impossible. Raven was like that in her teaching and punishment. No task was actually beyond my reach, just nearly. I'd have to go myself And oversee the operation. That meant trusting my own subordinates to lead attacks outside the valley they were used to operating in inorder to restore order to my tribe. I couldn't be in both places at once. Only Raven had that power.

I bowed respectfully. "If that's all I'll get it done."

She wasn't impressed, not yet. She would be though once I brought her the dust that must be on that ship. Many ships were violating the embargo for the higher prices. It was simple supply and demand. Crime would always rise if the price was right. This must be a single such ship from which ordinarily the bounty would belong to me, with a cut going to Raven, of course. This time the whole cut would be Raven's. I would be operating at a deficit the moment I struck out. Still I couldn't mistake this gift and second chance when it showed up. I stepped through a portal and back to my own territory. There was a great deal of work to be done.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The wreckage ploughed through fifty feet of trees, brush and dirt where it crash landed just at the bank of Lake Matsu. There was no sign of people moving in or around the craft despite that it has been most of two days since it went down.

Ships which tried to take the shortcut over the lake and which weren't sufficiently prepared for the Grimm that called the floating islands home tended to go down. This was just another unfortunate boat in that regard.

It was true to Raven's words, clearly Atlesian. All geometric angles unlike the smooth boat-like curves of Mistrali ships. It's wings were short and angular and it must have hit the ground relatively slowly if all the dust it should be carrying didn't go off and consume the tiny freighter in a ball of elemental energy.

The containers they ship dust in aren't actually designed to survive crash landings. Who'd have thunk.

Fortunate for us and less fortunate for whoever had been piloting the damn thing. It's wings were busted off and lay twenty feet back, ripped from the hull. One was up in the trees where it had burned through the branches, consuming the last of its fuel before it must have sputtered off and died.

The other was hurried in the earth, a solid ten feet in the ground where it gouged a narrow trench parallel to where the ship forged its own path through the earth.

That just left the body of the freighter and it would probably have few salvageable parts to go with it.

The boys pulled an unconscious man out fo the front of the ship with little regard for his well being before turning back to me. I knew what they wanted and I couldn't deny them it. Plus I had no reason to.

I jutted my chin in their direction. "Slit his throat."

I watched the pilot die with a whimper.

My boys pulled into the back and, amongst the dust and other cargo they started to haul out, one of them dragged a girl in a blue and white dress. Her ensemble had a familiar white logo to it.

I could guess what they wanted to do to her and it was only slightly less bloody than what they had had in mind for the pilot. Something made me hesitate, though. Her huntsman weapon, dragged out alongside her, was intricate. I took it from a man with a machete and gave the inner dust wheel a spin.

My man pulled her face up by the ponytail and she moaned a soft "please." Her face was familiar to me but I couldn't quite place it.

My first instinct was to let the men have her, the pigs, but something made me stop and think things through. Perhaps it was the recent lesson in reeling in my bloodthirst and maybe it was the scar over her left eye. Maybe it was the Schnee symbol on her back or maybe it was her huntsman weapon.

This was no ordinary girl. She was the only passenger on this freighter. What did that mean?

"What do you think?" I was asked.

I thought it meant she, too, was valuable. She could be sold and bought and Raven wanted everything of value, not just the dust.

"I think we hit the jackpot. Bash her." I ordered as she started to wake up. Someone hit her with the butt of their weapon and knocked her down into unconsciousness again. "We're taking her with us." I gave the dust cartridge on her weapon another spin before resting the blade of the rapier against my shoulder.

My boys would be disappointed but they would live. I, on the other hand, couldn't afford any more mistakes or lost chances.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	24. Puppet

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The last time I killed somebody it was unarguably an accident. This time it was going to be anything but. I was going out of my way to find this person, Eminence, and kill them on some gang lord's orders.

It was dirty.

I would like to say it was different because I knew her name but it really wasn't. Really I just felt empty inside as I led the way outside the house we called base. The heavy brown doors swung shut behind Qrow and I.

"You alright kid?" Qrow asked from the chair. "Listen, I'm going to go looking for other huntsman to help us. This job will be up to you."

I wasn't, really. "Guess I don't like the idea of being some glorified hit man."

"I've killed in situations like this before." Qrow confessed to me. "The odd job for the occasional gang lord. A murderer out in the woods that needed to be put down. That sort of thing."

"It makes me uncomfortable."

"That's a good thing, I'd argue. I'd hardly want you around my niece if you were comfortable with the idea of killing so casually."

"I guess I wish you had something more comforting to tell me."

"Well do you want to be comforted or do you want the truth? You struck me as a truth kind of guy."

"Well ideally I'd like the truth to be comforting."

He laughed. "Well me fucking too. You think I want to believe Leonardo is turning on us but you heard Ozpin. He's going against the orders he was given. We have to assume the worst about him. You know how it is. Better than my niece does. I know you do." There seemed to be something desperate in Qrow that wanted to relate to me. He wanted to make sure someone else was seeing what he was seeing. I did see it, though.

Ruby wanted to believe the best in people. She wanted to even though it hurt her too. It took so much effort from her to do it. To even look for the best in me took so much out of her but she kept doing it. I think that's why I loved her. Not just because she saw the best in me but because I knew how much work it was too.

Me, though, I knew and saw the minds of monsters. Here I was trying to dodge her questions about the favors we were asked in order to get the done. Here I was about to murder some girl right behind my girlfriend's back. I knew she would disapprove. She'd want us to find another way but there wasn't one.

It was like that with Cinder too. It was going to come down to one of us killing her, she was too dangerous to take prisoner or to fight with anything less than lethal intent. Would Ruby see it that way? Did Pyrrha see it before the end?

Did it matter? It certainly left me feeling hole hearted.

It wasn't a point of pride for me as I pulled up Eminance's last known location on my scroll and the bars and places she frequented.

"Are you going to be alright going around the lower levels by yourself?" I asked him.

"I'm an experienced huntsman."

"That's not what has me worried. Our story is kinda bust if I was supposed to be watching over you and you go missing."

"You're going to break my heart. All this worry about me." He laughed at me. "Look, you should be concerned about your mission. I'll be amongst some of the finer huntsman in Mistral."

"Right." I murmured. "Assuming you find them."

"You focus on finding her and when you do just… I don't know. Find your happy place."

"Find my happy place?" Was he serious? I gave his chair a push away from me and set out with heavy boot falls, grey Mistral gravel giving way under my feet.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I held up the photo of the dust witch I was given to two guys outside of a bar. "Either of you gentlemen seen this girl?" The bar didn't look like much but it was one of the places she was supposed to hang out. In fact, it looked like it was barely standing which I supposed differentiated it from the last few places I had been.

One of them peered closely while the other went for an immediate shrug without really looking. The guy who looked tapped the other one before he gave me a second look. Unlike the last few places I'd been I knew that they knew of her, even if they had no idea where she was.

I was certain of it as he gave my armor and clothes a second once over.

"Who's asking?" The one who looked close demanded.

"Just a fucking idiot, me." I clarified for him without lying in the slightest. "You know where she is or not?"

"Maybe we do maybe we don't." The dude beside us both went not so subtly for a knife.

"I seriously don't want any trouble from the two of you."

"Well you are looking for trouble, ain't ya." The one with the knife sneered. "Do we look like a couple of snitches. Don't you know-"

"Yeah yeah I've heard that snitches get stitches." I continued. "But it seems like you two are looking for stitches and over a couple of witches? That makes no sense."

He jabbed his knife at me but I jumped in place, both to get out of the way and to pop him into the air with Crocea Mors in the bastard sword form which I fluidly drew.

Instead of colliding with aura I shredded his torso. I split him vertically at the collar bone and I swore out loud over the crack of his bones. He fell with scream and blood sprayed everywhere.

The other made to make a run for it but my semblance activated due to my attack. I'd spent all day walking around, asking questions; nothing to do but make it so my semblance was mostly charged up in case I found my target or got caught up in a fight.

I ran him down easily enough as people screamed and tried to back away from the bloodshed. I grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him around and picked him up into the air. "Just talk, man. It isn't worth it. I'm not worth it. She's not worth it." This whole thing wasn't worth any of it. Please just tell me.

He flailed in my grip for a moment before going limp like a fish out of water. He gasped for breath and, glowing all the while, I pressed the tip of my blade against his skin. No aura either. Just some dumbasses acting too tough.

I knew something about that. I was a lucky one, though. These guys weren't. I doubted Pyrrha was going to come save them when they were clearly in over their heads like she had saved me.

"Okay, okay. She and her man come by sometimes. They have some place on the middle levels. I can give you directions. Just let me call some help for my friend. For fucks sake put me down."

"I need those directions." I pushed him harder against the cold grey wall. Down here on the lower levels people were content to stay out of a rogue huntsman's way. They wouldn't say much to some cop either. There was contraband being sold in broad daylight down here. No one would say shit, I bet. Even if I full on killed these two, no one would say anything.

Just two more corpses on the pile.

I wasn't a cop, too. That would work in my favor. As if to drive the point home, something inside me hungered for the violence. I drew blood again, I slid Crocea Mors against the flesh above his waist, threatening to disembowel him.

"Agh! Fuck okay okay."

He gave me directions and afterwards I let him down to take his friend wherever he was going to take him.

Unless he got help quickly he would probably die. I mean serious help too. A hospital or… I watched him bleed into the dirt for a second before I knelt down and unlocked his aura. I didn't stay to watch my handiwork or the see the wound start to close. I wasn't sure that it would but I gave him something of a fighting chance.

In my head I wrote him off, though, and added a digit to my mental body count.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The place I found had the windows and doors boarded up. Literal boards nailed into place over the windows and what was once the double door at the entrance had a casket or wardrobe stripped to pieces over half of it, making it a single doored entrance now.

I'd fought dust witches before. Or at least I'd fought Weiss and it might be best to say that Weiss fought me. She wasn't as merciful as Ruby was whenever we'd get paired up in Goodwitch's class. She usually took the opportunity to try out moves she couldn't against any other opponent so I'd spent some time trapped in her spells, at least. That counted. I wasn't sure how much it counted for, but it counted.

Plus I'd seen Ms. Goodwitch work. That together with Weiss was what I called my experience with dust sorcery. It wasn't much but it was enough to grasp the concept of magic with dust.

It also gave me an idea of what to look out for so the first thing that stood out to me was the glyphs on the windows and walls, etched in dust. From that I was sure the house was booby trapped for an intruder. I'd been caught in enough dust glyphs to know one was bad news when I saw one.

It also made me rather certain I had the right place and the directions I was given weren't bogus. It was late, though, and a soft light from inside seemed to indicate my target was already indoors. I'd have rather ambushed her out here but if I had to go in then I had to go in. My target and her man, whoever that was, were probably both inside. Her man… they might have to go, too.

I grimaced at the bloodlust inside of me. It made me hesitate but there wasn't much to do and my mind was made up. Opportunity was knocking.

The front door looked clear enough. I gave it and the handle a second look over before I kicked it in.

Adrenaline rushed as I swept my gaze across the interior of the premises. A second floor with staircase on my right, a dining hall which ran up to a fire place on my left. Attached was a chimney which looked decrepit and might even bring the place down if someone started a fire there.

A man ate beside the girl who I immediately recognized as the target. They were eating dinner, I'd caught them by surprise.

I Limit Bladebeamed them both and I didn't get any less aggressive from there as I prepared an assault with Crocea Mors in her full six-and-some-change foot form.

I barely let them get to their weapons and cursed myself for it.

Before they were even released from the bladebeam I struck. I hopped charging Limit as I rose and fell to get the next Limit all while praying she wouldn't call his name so I wouldn't have to know it.

Maybe that was cowardly of me but I was allowed that tiny bit of selfishness, wasn't I? Maybe not. I was the murderer in all this. The hit man. I felt like one too, interrupting dinner like this. She swept a staff at me and though we were in a house the wind picked up. A sigil appeared next to me, green with wind dust and ready to burst and wash over me.

I shattered it with a swing of my sword and though fifteen feet separated us she stumbled, losing concentration on her spell.

Weirdly enough I wasn't shook up at all by what I was doing. I was ready to get intimate with it. "Seifer!" She shouted out.

I cursed at the knowledge of the man's name. I'll never be able to forget it. He wore a cape and cloak and had his hair in a tight military cut with a tiny cowlick.

He looked good, but not for long. At least not if I had anything to say about it.

I swept his blade out of the way as I landed on their dinner and kicked him in the chest, then I kicked him again in the side as he fell, then I brought my blade in a tight arc that clipped his aura as he stumbled backwards, flicking him rolling to the ground.

A sigil appeared under me, glowing brown and tinged with red and the table wood leapt up at me as it burned while she rotated her staff in my general direction. The stars of a pentagram collapsed on me and I felt my Limit Break. I broke my way out of the splintered table with the strength it gave me and I spent it immediately, gliding towards her and bringing my sword down in a tremendous arc. It was a brave move, foolish if I didn't have Limit.

She raised her staff and I brought my blade straight through it and all the aura between us. Purple flared to life as I pounded her into the ground then I caught her in a non-limit version of what my friends and I called the Cross-Slash.

She flew away from me glowing purple.

Seifer came at me, he hit me with his shoulder and slammed me into the lower part of the staircase hard enough to shake the whole house.

He punched me in the gut which I ate, then the head. I ignored both of those attacks with a soft glow of golden aura. They would have to do better than that. I was always a bit on the tank side of things. So far they had barely scratched the surface of what I could do.

I reached out and grabbed him with one hand, lifted him by the shoulder and slammed him into the tiled floor. I picked my weapon up from where he made me drop it and I palmed my pocket.

I pulled a red dust crystal on us both and crushed it. His eyes went wide before we were both caught in a fireball.

My sword made several satisfying whooshing sounds through the air and at the end of each I was met with his darker red aura.

He tried to parry me with his shorter blade but it was little use. I outranged him and I was stronger than him. Plus I would wager I was also the better swordsman, even without Limit.

I really just whaled on him, like Cardin had once done to me but faster. More like how Pyrrha had whaled on Cardin, actually.

Thinking about her fucking hurt right now, though, it was a bit of a relief when I did enough damage to charge my semblance again, it cleared my head.

With my semblance, though, I was faster, stronger, taller, and could afford more to make more mistakes. I left an intentional opening and when he went for it, I nearly took his arm off.

I never let him out of the corner.

I beat him until he couldn't do little but raise his weapon. I kneed him in the chest to make him stumble back then I hopped and swept my blade at him knocking him back into the chimney. I jumped across the ruined table and brought my blade down on him knocking him to the ground.

Then I did it again and bounced him actually into the floor. To follow up my savagery, I thrust my sword forward and with a burst carried us all the way to the second floor, then without stopping, I took us to the roof. I watched his aura pop and heard the girl scream "please," before I slammed him all the way back down to the first floor.

He fell down partially into a basement bleeding everywhere.

I ticked my mental body count to three. He wouldn't make it.

I turned to my real target. I knew any apology I made would just be empty for both of us, so I didn't bother. She in turn shouted and set me on fire. It was harsh enough that it forced me to roll past their splinted and crushed dining table to try and put some distance between myself and the intense heat.

I hopped charging my semblance as I rose and fell again before I swept the blade in a tight arc that she blocked with her staff. I landed and gave that baseball style swing which knocked her threw a wall and into their kitchen. She even put her staff between us.

I was just strong enough that it didn't matter. Was this what Ruby and Pyrrha felt like?

Don't think about them; head in the game.

I slowly charged my semblance while she struggled to rise. I was nearly there. Once I had it, I'd Cross-Slash her and end this.

She rotated her staff once she had her feet and purple light flicked into place below me. Gravity dust.

I felt myself go weightless and she charged me, she hit me with the long spear head on her staff. The staff rather reminded me of one I'd seen at Amity Arena. Sun's team fought them.

Unfortunately for her, I was familiar with gravity dust from my time spent as Weiss's chew toy. I balled myself up then kicked forward to rotate my way out of the circle without actually pushing off of anything.

A staff was a basic weapon, it was the versatility of the dust that gave away the user's strengths and there was purple dust at the head of this one.

Purple gathered behind me despite my attempts to dodge and she shouted as her spell was cast and she threw me out of the house and one of the sigils she left behind exploded on me, sending me bouncing out and into the courtyard in front of the place.

I rolled across the ground before I got back to my feet. All the pain I might have felt was hidden under adrenaline and the next Limit Break.

Was it strange I'd been sort of rooting for them to win in my head? Maybe a little. I hadn't exactly wanted to loose but I sort of wanted them to win or escape or something.

I advanced on her in a single jump which took me back to the building. She was trying to pull her friend out of the ground and put his arm around her shoulders in a classic carry.

She hardly had time to turn before I bust the Cross-Slash out on them both. Her aura popped after the third hit and after that I minced her. My blood roared with the success of it.

When it was done I picked up her broken staff, hafted from the Cross-Slash, the only sign I'd need that I had won the day for the Malachites.

With her that made four. Four people whose lives I'd ended. Still I felt no sadness, no empathy for my common man. Just that same emptiness I set out with. A coldness in my stomach and a woman's laughter ringing in my ears.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	25. Reunion

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**(Yang Pov)**

"You weren't kind this time either." I drove my motorcycle through my mother's gateway without a backwards glance. Weiss clung tight to me as we passed through the swirling shadow.

My uncle was on the other side just as my mother had promised. He was the same as ever except for the chair. My eyes ran down it to his legs, then quickly back up to his face.

Jaune was there too, the two seemed to be sharing a drink on a Mistral vista with a broken piece of wood in Qrow's lap and a flask in one hand.

I missed whatever they had been talking about; guess our entrance had interrupted whatever they were discussing.

I drove the motorcycle to a shuddering stop in front of them and Weiss dismounted behind me. Qrow's face broke into a grin while Jaune just sort of stood there looking gobsmacked. Typical Jaune stuff, really. Except he was bloodsoaked.

"Uncle Qrow!" I let loose at the sight of the missing limbs. "What happened?"

"It was one fucking fight." He clenched his fist and jaw. I took the moment to really take them in, Jaune looked off from my memory of him at Beacon. His silhouette was different, with a different set of armor and a larger sword across his back. He also looked roughed up a little.

I heard the portal shut behind us. Good riddance.

"And Jaune?" Weiss murmured beside me. "What happened to you?"

He nervously shuffled. Classic Jaune; something else was off, though. "Bit of a bar scuffle. Nothing super serious. Haha." He laughed it off. Or tried to.

It looked serious, though, more serious than any bar scuffle I'd been in, if not as serious as Qrow's missing legs had to be.

"Seriously, what happened to you?" I demanded addressing my uncle. My mother had just given me the run-around for a solid half hour. Maybe I was short of patience.

"Fought this big Grimm, on my own. Didn't go well. Your little sister found me, bought me the chair, and carried me to Mistral. Had some help from this guy, too." He bumped Jaune. "Come on, your sister will be happy to see you. Both of you." Jaune handed his drink to Qrow and got behind the chair and started pushing in what looked like a fairly familiar routine.

Weiss and I exchanged a glance before we followed them inside. The view from the vista was fine and all but I wanted to see my sister.

"I'm back!" Qrow called once he entered the place.

"Be right there!" My sister answered from inside the rustic Mistrali house. Low ceilings and wide rugs with the occasional plant potted here and there all built around a central garden. "No I'm not. Shut up." Ruby said to somebody else out of view.

"Hey-uh-Ruby." Qrow called out again.

Ruby came waltzing out of what must be the kitchen based on the smell, carrying a full tray of tea and biscuits. "We didn't know how much to make so we just-"

To be honest I rather had my fill of the stuff in Raven's tent. Maybe it was for the best then, because when she looked up she dropped the tray, shattering the pieces across the hardwood floor with a slight gasp.

"Yang! I'm s-so sorry I s-should have stayed I should have talked to you more, I just- I wasn't sure if you wanted me around-" I crossed the distance between us and took my little sister in my arms.

I did my best to silence her tears. "I love you."

She continued to cry. "I love you too."

I turned and gestured to Weiss but she already averted her gaze out of some sense of respect for us. It wasn't needed or wanted from either of us.

"Weiss." Ruby murmured. Together we held out our arms for her and she pranced over to embrace the two of us in a big three way hug.

I noticed Jaune slip by us after hanging his weapons on a clothes rack. He was acting shifty. This spot of affection did not blind my sisterly eye.

When we released it was evidently time to eat. For the rest of us, that was. I could hear a shower running upstairs where Jaune was.

Nora set an enormous bowl of ramen on an inset table and we were sort of expected to tuck in. "It looks so good." Nora let out.

"I know!" My sister squealed back. I was glad she had had somebody to squeal with.

It took me back to Beacon and the food fight I once had there surrounded by these friends. Thinking about that just made me think of Blake, and Pyrrha, too. I did my best to avoid that. I focused on the conversation of new things my friends had gone through. New was good. It was distracting.

Conversation flowed around me about the adventures we'd been on. Weiss told us stories about Atlesian parties and Ruby, Nora, and Ren beguiled me with a tale of tramping across anima.

"So what's up with Jaune?" Weiss asked, she must have been as curious about our missing member as I was suspicious.

"Oh I bet he's just washing up. Hehe." My sister shrugged off. "He was probably pushing Qrow around all day."

"He was covered in blood." I countered.

"Oh well-" Ruby faltered as Jaune entered the room. He sat down next to Weiss. He was out of his new huntsman garb, just wearing a hoodie and some jeans. His new cotton t shirt and long pants must have been in the wash.

He gathered a bowl of food only to look up when he must have noticed our attention. "Did I miss something?"

"We were talking about the state you were in." Weiss pointed her chopsticks at him.

"Bar fight, Qrow and I spent the day looking for some of his old hunter buddies."

"Did it go well?" I asked sardonically.

He just laughed. "Not really. All we found were you two. Reports indicate that all or most of them are dead."

"And the bar fight?" Weiss pressed.

"I had aura and the other guy didn't. I didn't know that and one thing led to another."

"Oh Jaune did you-"

"Hey let's not." Jaune interrupted Ruby. "People are trying to eat."

He took a long drink from that glass he'd been sharing with Qrow. Finished the entire thing in one gulp. I got the sudden sense I wasn't the only one who had had a long day.

"So…" I trailed off. "They were telling us about the Knuckelavee."

Jaune gasped off the last of the alcohol he was drinking. "That's the one that took Qrow's legs. You asked earlier."

"They were telling us you killed it."

He frowned. "Ren killed it."

"After you nearly cut it in two." Ren countered. "You used your semblance and everything."

"Some Grimm are like that, though." Jaune countered. "And I wasn't alone."

"You unlocked your semblance?" Weiss wondered. "What does it do?"

"It well," Jaune thought for a moment. "It makes me change states. Then it makes me stronger and faster and there's a charge I can spend."

"Its better than that!" Nora cried, disparaging her leader. "You make it sound boring."

"Well... you use it once or twice..."

"When Jaune's semblance is active he is stronger and faster this is true, but I've also seen him hover across the ground." Ren butt in with a little clarification. "Then he can spend the charge he has stored up in an attack. That was also true. But it doesn't really do the concept justice."

"I hover?" Jaune asked.

"You know it reminds me a little of yours, Yang." Ruby cut in.

"But mine just makes me stronger."

"And mine isn't tied to my emotions." Jaune clarified. At my look he continued. "Ruby told me a little about yours. Yours sometimes activates when you're angry. I have to hold still and charge mine."

"Holding still in a fight?" I wondered.

"It has its drawbacks." Jaune noded. "It also can activate when I deal or take enough damage, too."

"I said they were similar, not identical! Speaking of, Yang! You have that shiny new arm!"

"Sure it's no replacement for the original thing, though." I stood up and flexed with my new arm. "Trying to make good use of it anyways."

My little sis dashed up to get a closer look. "Ooh. And it's just as strong?"

"Yep." I smirked down at her. So short.

_Thud. _Nora set her arm on the table. "You wanna bet? Jaune you want in on this?"

"Jaune?" I laughed.

"Oh he might surprise you." Nora rolled her fingers. "I bet I'm more than enough to take you on, anyways."

"Nora please." Weiss sighed and rolled her eyes. She pretty much set in stone that I had to do it with that. "Now's not the time for these sorts of games."

I walked over and set my arm down across from Nora. Despite Nora's words Jaune didn't get in on the action. Instead he was content to root for his teammate from the sidelines.

He was… bigger than before I suppose. Wider soldiers, thicker at the tricep, that sort of thing. The way they all talked about him was like he really had changed. And of course, I could hardly ignore the way he had looked soaked in somebody else's blood and casually drinking with my uncle.

Alarm bells went off for that one.

Mid match, I popped my arm off and the momentum sent Nora cartwheeling into one of the walls. I suppose we were truly lucky she didn't go through it. Oh well no harm, no foul.

She gave a cry and launched the arm back at me and I deftly caught it laughing all the while. Weird shit with Jaune or not it was good to be back. All there was to do with my Dad was eat and crap sometimes.

"Do you mean to tell me we ate all of it?" Nora bursted out. "I wanted another bowl."

Jaune was stacking all of our plates in the center bowl so he could carry it away. He joined late and by the sound of things hadn't been involved in preparing the food.

"Looks like it. I bet there's some more snacks in the kitchen if you're that hungry."

"Hey Jaune," I perked up. "Remember back at Beacon when-"

"If I wanted to remember Beacon I'd go to bed early." Jaune shot back from the doorway.

"What's his deal?" I demanded of the remaining table.

"He does seem a little… off." Weiss added, noting her own two lien.

"We all have different ways of coping." Ren seemed content to shrug it off. "It's been a long time. I won't confess that Jaune's methods are particularly healthy, but he does get through each day. We've all grown in different ways."

"Maybe I should talk to him." Ruby cut in. "Whatever happened today probably didn't help. Last time-"

"Last time what? Last time he killed someone? That's what he implied." I continued, unabaited.

"It was an accident last time. I was there. He used his semblance on a bandit and it just…" Ruby trailed off.

"Oh." I didn't have much to say to that. It was hard to think of vomit Boy as a killer, but Ruby wouldn't lie about that.

"Besides, if you were Jaune would you want to think about Beacon. All of his memories are tainted by what happened towards the end." Ren continued. "Your uncle's been training him during the weeks we've stayed here and since then he's picked up some of his more… unfortunate habits. We've all changed, though." Ren repeated like a mantra.

"He's not the only person who lost things." I murmured.

"I'm sure you changed as well." Ren continued. "Or looking back would you say that you were perfect. I just wager that Jaune has more reason to look back and be disgusted by what he sees than the rest of us."

"Oh Lord." Weiss put her face in her hands, probably remembering something Neptune-related. Or perhaps even having to do with Ruby if you went back far enough.

"I suppose." I finished. It didn't give him the right to be rude to us. Though thinking back his comment seemed less directed at me and more at himself. I might be taking it a bit personally even now. "I suppose I may be a bit gung-ho."

"You?" Ruby shrugged. "I tried to take on an adult nevermore on the second day of school."

"Well that embarrassment and desire to tell yourself not to be so stupid just shows you're not who you once were and you never will be again."

"I don't know. I was pretty flawless." Nora looked her fingernails over for emphasis.

I snorted. "Even at the dance when you spilled-"

"Yes especially at the dance!" She shouted over me. "Thank you Yang!"

"How can five kids eating dinner be so loud."

I turned. It was Jaune, Qrow, and a short boy in farming attire waiting at the kitchen entrance. To my surprise and Ruby's visible disappointment, Jaune was drinking from Qrow's flask.

He gasped from the alcohol and handed it back to the man in the chair who shook it. "Did you have to take so much."

"I told you that you don't need as much. You exceeded your weight loss goals, so this would just be too much for you."

"If I wasn't in this chair…"

Different but the same. Different but the same. Well so long as Ruby was alright and mostly uninvolved with whatever was happening to Jaune, I'd be happy.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**(Weiss POV)**

A few hours was not enough for me to truly grasp the maidens, their power, and the secrets which had been shared with me. It had been one thing to hear it from the bandit warlord that was Yang's mother. It was easy to not trust her. Oscar, or rather, Ozpin had been harder to mistrust.

Plus Ruby evidently believed in it. So there was that. Perhaps their more trustworthy and disabled uncle had told her as well. The whole matter was wrapped up in Ruby's and Yang's family which did nothing but make it more complicated.

Magic was real. Real magic as opposed to dust sorcery or semblances. Powers beyond the standard mortal coil.

It was hard to grasp and Ozpin hadn't been specific about what those powers were. They existed and could be used to unlock the relics. That seemed to be enough for the others but I confessed a certain curiosity. I wanted to know more about the powers themselves, was that so wrong?

Ozpin had sent us to bed before I could ask anything after Yang's little standoff with him. Everyone except Jaune, that is, who was out in the yard with a hose spraying off his weapon.

Ruby promised to talk whatever happened over with him and of anybody I trusted her to make things right, irregardless of what happened. Ruby just had that about her. Still, I thought I might try my hand at it. I knew how tactful Ruby could be.

"Jaune, do you mind if I join you?"

"What?" He looked up at me for a moment. "Um no." He hosed the blades a moment longer before he pulled a cloth and took it to the broadsword.

Blood had clotted up in the interworking and unlike Grimm gore it wasn't turning to black smoke. Jaune was grimacing as he scrapped it away.

Now that I was here I wasn't sure what to say. I'd been silent about my capture at the hands of a group of bandits and Jaune had killed at least one bandit but I doubted that made for a decent conversation starter.

Jaune had other ideas in the silence, however. "Ruby helped me design the new form."

"I'm sorry?"

"My sword's new form. Ruby helped me design it. Who am I kidding? She designed the whole thing."

"The broadsword suits you." I tried awkwardly. I cursed myself as I watched him scrub the finer joints of metal. It wasn't like the Titania would rust or become brittle under the blood but Jaune still wanted his blade clean of whatever he had done this evening.

"What happened to you this evening?"

I could respect that. My own weapon had fewer crevices and creases where grime could get caught but I still tried to keep Myrtnaster clear of any such things.

"It's really not worth going over but… we needed information from this guy and he acted tougher than he was. I nearly cut him in two for it. Makes you think."

He picked up his blade by its long handle and started doing jump squats with the blade as a weight while I watched.

"Did it remind you of you?"

He paused at the question. "Yeah. What would have happened to me if I hadn't been partners with Pyrrha, you know? And I killed him."

"And that's worth getting moody about?" I hadn't meant to sound so critical but he laughed it off.

"Well it only happened today. When else am I supposed to be moody about it."

"I meant the parts with Pyrrha." I corrected softly. "I heard what happened to her."

"Yeah. She's worth dwelling on too." He set the sword down and leaned on it, looking at me. He meant it, though. "So is what happened to her."

He didn't look offended or upset. He just seemed sort of curious where I was going with it. "I admired her too. But everyone can see you trying to destroy yourself over it."

"Oh. That stuff."

"So you agree you're doing it. With the drinking and the implied violence."

"I'm not looking to kill myself, if that's what you mean. A lot has happened to me since Beacon's fall. A lot. I'm not who I was when Pyrrha died. You don't need to break your back over it. I swear."

"You've changed and I'm concerned it isn't for the better."

"Easy, Weiss."

"Well what are Yang and I supposed to think? What does Ruby think about all this?"

"Ruby will tell you what she thinks if you ask her, I bet. You have a special place in her heart."

"Do you know what she thinks? Everyone can tell she's worried about you."

"Ruby worries about everyone. You should know that. It's what she does. She cares." He sounded exacerbated, tired.

"So you do know what she thinks about this."

"Are you asking me to tell you what she thinks? She's told me. We've had some little talks." He said that bit almost teasingly. Like he was mocking me.

"Ruby doesn't need to be trying to look after you on top of everything else."

"So this is about Ruby? And here I thought you really might care."

"That's not what I meant. It's obvious Ruby is being groomed by Ozpin to be one of the maidens. She has enough to worry about without you flying off the handles."

"Ozpin can have Ruby over my defiled corpse. After what he did to Pyrrha." He had some real venom. Guess I finally hit a nerve. I'd been prodding for one for a bit and hadn't found one. Still, now that I did...

"What did Ozpin do to Pyrrha?"

"I thought you heard what happened to her." He snorted. "Ozpin picked Pyrrha as the new fall maiden. Cinder came for the power and Pyrrha tried to stop her."

"That sounds like Pyrrha's choice." I refuted right back.

"I've heard this before from Ruby." He seemed content to dismiss whatever I had to say. "But it was in Pyrrha's nature to do what she did. Ozpin must have known that."

"And that's worth dwelling on?"

"It certainly keeps me up at night. Especially with the knowledge of what Ozpin plans for my friends, you included. You'd probably make a fine maiden, too. Ozpin's thought about it. I know he has." He said grimly. "Why shouldn't I?"

"You should worry about yourself."

"Same back to you." He murmured. "I don't need whatever this is before you've even had the chance to talk to Ruby."

"But are you stable, though? Are you safe?"

"Aw you do care. I'm fine Weiss. Ruby's been looking after me." I opened my mouth. "I know. I know. I shouldn't be worrying her. But it's in her nature to look after strays like me. Like you, too. She missed you." I closed my jaw.

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I'd come out here to reprimand him a little and in the end he was here trying to comfort me. I wanted to work him into shape and find out what was wrong. Now I wanted to see if Ruby and her sister were done so I could join them. I'd given them some space and now maybe it was my time to intrude a little on them.

I'd seen how drinking had destroyed my family and maybe it was just the impression he'd left us with but maybe he wasn't throwing himself into alcoholism. Maybe it was just one bad day where he'd had to kill one dude who maybe had had it coming. Alright, it sounded excessive but he made it sound like an accident. That had to count for something. And underneath it all he still sounded like the same old Jaune. Was it possible I was worried over nothing? I know Yang had seen a little of what I did and Ren mentioned unhealthy coping mechanisms but what else could we expect?

"Then, good night?"

He nodded. "I'll just be out here getting some late night workouts in. Good talk."

I nodded and left for the door, for some reason I was even more unsure of where he stood than before.

"And Weiss," he called out. "It is good to have you back."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

As it turns out I didn't get the chance to catch up with my team until the following morning. I braced myself before I intruded on the two sisters out in the courtyard in the morning dew.

"What are you doing up?" Ruby asked Yang.

"Can't fall back asleep."

"Ah-me neither."

"Well fortunately." I got their attention. "Coffee exists." I walked over and handed a regularly creamed and sugared drink to Yang before moving over to the problem child.

"No please." Ruby pleaded.

"Don't worry. I put in blasphemous amounts of cream and sugar. Just for you." I may have been laying it on a little thick. So sue me.

I was happy to see them again.

"Ah yeah. Nice Weiss strikes again."

"I will pour this on you and it will burn," I threatened. I had to balance it out somehow.

She laughed nervously but accepted the drink in two cupped hands just the same.

I set the tray down before kneeling in the dirt to join my team.

"I can't believe we're actually in Mistral." Yang murmured over her cup.

"That's what you can't believe?" Ruby wondered back.

"Well yeah. And all the other magic and stuff but- okay you know what I mean."

"I honestly wasn't sure if I'd ever see you two again." I held out my cup to clink it against Yang's while Ruby slurped hers down behind us.

"Well, here's to defying expectations."

"I just wish Blake could be here with us," Ruby murmured.

"Yeah well, she made her choice." Yang leaned back, setting the coffee beside her.

Ruby and I shared a look. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"I mean she could have been here if she just stuck around." Yang wouldn't look at us. "It's no big deal though. We'll be fine."

"Don't you want her here?" Ruby asked.

"Why would I want her here." Yang smothered the thought.

"Are you still mad at her for leaving?"

"Oh whatever gave you that idea, Ruby. I'm totally fine, I'm great."

This wasn't going at all how I wanted. "Okay. Calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down." Yang's eyes flashed red at me.

"Whoa, Yang." Ruby mumbled.

Yang stood up, snagging her coffee. "Whatever."

"Should we go after her?" I asked.

Ruby shook her head. "It might be best to let her cool off for a minute or two."

Ruby and I shared a look and I got the sense that now wasn't the best time to talk to her about Jaune. The chickens weren't in order in my own house so who was I to go knocking on other doors when Jaune could at least maintain a conversation.

Even if the subject of that conversation made him uncomfortable, it wasn't like he had snapped at me. Both blondes had a great deal to be upset about but Jaune seemed to be handling it. He openly admitted Ruby had had to help him, but he was handling it.

Murder aside, he was doing well. We couldn't really say the same about Yang. At first glance at least. Yang wasn't hiding her emotions whereas Jaune talked like he had something to hide. He'd kept me distracted from the real subjects whatever they happened to be. I had enough experience with it with my father and the company he kept.

Yang had always worn her emotions on her sleeve and Jaune at least used to. It was good to see that she still did and disheartening news to see that Jaune felt he had things to hide. Well, he hid things from me at least. There was no telling what he felt he had to hide from Ruby.

Or maybe I was just reading into things. Jaune had plenty of reason to feel uncomfortable around me and I had more or less cornered him. He hadn't really shown any signs of his former infatuation with me, though. If anything he seemed a little wary of me.

I had enough about that, though. I was back with my best friend. But now that she was here alone with me I was struggling for something to say. So I just said it.

"How have you been, Ruby?"

"Oh uh…" She was caught off guard by the question. She recovered quickly enough. "I've actually been good. Things have been good for me. Even if they're not so good in general." She took a sip from her coffee. "Is that bad of me to say, even with how my uncle got hurt?"

"No Ruby, you don't have a bad bone in your body." I took a drink myself.

"Well, I'm a little worried about Jaune and what happened yesterday. No doubt he blames himself for whatever happened, even if it's an accident. We haven't really had the chance to talk about it yet."

"Jaune and I had an interesting conversation last night." I took a drink of my coffee. "But besides that everything is good?" It didn't sound so bad. Ruby was always the optimist so just getting to Mistral might be enough to get her sprits up.

"Oh you did? Did he say anything interesting?" Ruby seemed to hesitate.

"He was pretty tightlipped actually."

"Oh that makes sense, I suppose."

Was she thinking about how Jaune asked me out to relentlessly? It made a certain amount of sense that way. "Why does that make sense?"

"Oh uh well-" Ruby seemed to be hesitating on the cusp of telling me something, though. "Jaune and I became a couple."

"Oh." I had not been expecting that. I was sure I was looking at her wide eyed. It made a certain amount of things make sense. Perhaps Jaune had been waiting for Ruby to tell me. That explained how tightlipped he was, murder and Pyrrha aside.

"I know what you must be thinking but I've always sort of liked him. I like how emotionally open he is and how strong he has become. Not just anybody with any attitude can keep pace with me." Ruby began to ramble.

"I wasn't thinking about that." I denied. I'd been mostly too stunned to get much thinking done. "He keeps pace with you?"

"You should see how strong he is now, the kind of hunter he's becoming. His instincts. And I don't just mean with his huntsmanship either." She clarified for me. "He's emotionally strong too. I like it alot. We spent Valentine's day together and it was awesome."

"I see." I struggled. I'd never managed a romantic relationship and here was little Ruby Rose telling me she's managed it for who knows how long. "I would just be worried after well- you know."

"After what?"

"Well… Pyrrha."

She didn't seem too off put. Instead she just nodded. "We've talked about her. He's not completely over her but, well, I can't really blame him. I wouldn't really want him to be either, you know? What kind of person would he be if he could totally move on so soon. But they were never a couple." Ruby seemed almost relieved to have somebody to share this with. It tugged at my heart a little, how much she trusted me. "Plus he and I were always close and it just sort of happened. We sort of fell together."

She took another drink of coffee while I wrapped my head around all this. It sort of put last night in perspective. Jaune had been waiting for Ruby to decide to tell me. That explained what he had been avoiding.

"And don't tell Yang or my uncle." Ruby continued. "I want to wait a bit and tell them on my own. Jaune must have not mentioned this to you, he must have been waiting for me. He's thoughtful like that. Plus I told him not to tell my uncle. I was waiting for them to become a little closer."

"Well, they seem close."

"Maybe I waited a bit too long." Ruby gave a nervous chuckle. "They have gotten maybe even closer than I would have liked but uncle Qrow likes Jaune's instincts and Jaune is like a sponge for his pessimistic wisdom. Jaune was always pessimistic, though."

"And what about Yang?" I had to wonder.

"Well you see how emotional she can be. She can also be a bit overprotective. Jaune and I have been going out for a few months now and I don't exactly need her opinion on it, just her support."

I felt a little whiplashed. I'd been so suspicious but maybe Jaune had just been being a good boyfriend? I… wow. I couldn't really imagine it for myself but it made a certain amount of sense for Ruby.

"But enough about me, listen to me gush, how have you been? How was Atlas, really?" Ruby reached over and took my hand and I inhaled a shaking breath.

"It was hard. My family is like that."

"Is that all?"

"I didn't find a boyfriend while I was there, not like you."

"Oh posh." Ruby dismissed my dismissal and she squeezed my hand a little tighter. "I know being around your father is hard."

"Well luckily I'm not around him. I'm around you now. He was abusive, both physically and emotionally but nothing new."

"Oh Weiss."

"But I'm over him and past that. Or as much as I can be. "

"It's never that easy."

"No it's not but… well I'm happy to have Salem as a distraction. Is that weird? I'd rather have a world ending threat than think about my parents."

"It's sad. I'm sorry Weiss."

I wiped a tear from my eye. It was hard to talk about but this was Ruby. This was my real family.

"I'm going to go try talking to Yang. I think I can help." I let go of Ruby's hand and stood up.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	26. I've Been Thinking I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I wasn't the sort to dwell on what Weiss had wanted from me. Well I totally was. I dwelt on everything. I was a dweller. But I was also the sort to get my workout in anyways.

Really, my thoughts were on _Eminence_ and her _partner. _The people I had killed. They hadn't acted like gang members or at least not like the picture I had in my head of gang members. What with the pleas for me to spare their lives and all.

Well maybe the picture I had of gang members was of non-people. Then when I encountered some people and killed them I was surprised to find out that they were the same as anybody else. They had died the same as everybody else would, or at least most people would; together, if they were lucky, and begging for their lives, besides.

Qrow wheeled out on me while I was practicing my Limit Breaks and just watched me move around for a long time.

"Enjoying the view?" I asked.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"How are you feeling, kid."

"Like a murderer and a liar."

"We both know why we had to keep it from Ruby. Now we just have one more favor from Ms. Malachite."

"Assuming she keeps her word. I don't trust these criminals as much as you do."

"She will. She has to uphold deals she makes in front of her men in good faith. Or else they'll start to wonder about their own paychecks. It's a little bit of honor amongst thieves. It's more to prevent backstabbing than out of any real sense of honor, though. Trust that."

"Gee, if you say it like that I really have no choice."

"Tell me how you really feel."

"I feel… all kinds of fucked up. I want to talk to Ruby about it but I can't and it's leaving me more fucked up."

"You know why we can't talk to Ruby about it. As far as she is concerned it's just one favor. Scroll keys out of Don Corneo."

"I'm supposed to just live with this. Live with myself."

"Yeah kid. Just like the rest of us."

"The thing is I think I can do it. I think I can do it _easily_, too. That scares me."

"Sounds too complicated for me. It sounds like you're struggling; just the same as I do."

I grunted and swung my sword at nothing.

"It's not quite the same. And all I have to talk to about it is you."

"Easy kid. Have a drink. Relax. There's nothing you can change about it now and nothing you would want to anyways."

I inhaled a shaking breath. He was right. Qrow needed legs. I had to be the one to kill them. It had to be done. No one of my friends would have done it. Didn't that make it wrong? None of them would have approved. I already had the answers I needed. I just didn't like them.

"Who were they? What did they do to deserve having me come after them?"

"Does it really matter? Come on have a drink."

"I don't want to drink anymore."

"You need to relax somehow."

"I am. This is what I do to relax now."

This was how I'd relax for the rest of my life. I swung the sword fast enough that it made several satisfying _thump_ sounds in the air.

"Well, we wanted to discuss the matter of infiltrating Don Corneo's workplace with you." It was Ozpin. Someone I wanted to talk to even less.

"What about it? We don't need to risk Ruby or Nora now. And I don't need to wear a dress. We have Yang."

"I'm not super comfortable with my niece going in there."

"But you're comfortable with me killing people." I wiped my brow and glared at Qrow. "Your priorities are fucked."

"Easy on the language, now." Ozpin said with Oscar's mouth. "It's good that we have only one favor between us and getting Qrow back on his feet. Then, thanks to Ms. Xaio Long and Ms. Schnee being with us again, things are better now than they were yesterday."

"What does better for you even mean?" I wondered. "How do you handle the lying and the murder?"

"So long as they don't ask us about it, it's hardly lying. And from what you told Qrow you did kill somebody in a near bar fight. The story you told your friends merely bordered on the truth." Ozpin lectured. "As for killing it never gets any easier. And that's a good thing. Though, we take life we don't make any light of it." I exhaled hard. It was no new advice. "And we don't make sport of it. I heard you encountered one of the people drafted to Salem's side."

"The Scorpion."

"Yes. Tyrian. There are others too. Others like Hazel Rainart. They would not be so disturbed by violence as you are. Let them serve as a counterpoint. Would the man who attacked Ruby and yourself be upset if they had killed someone? Perhaps. But not like you are now."

"I get it. I get it." I sighed. "You wanted to talk about the infiltration mission. I vote Yang."

"We should discuss it." Qrow interceded.

"We are." Ozpin and I said at the same time. That pissed me off.

"I don't like the idea of her in there."

"You think I have a chance in a dress? I can rock a dress but I'm missing a certain je ne sais quoi that Yang has."

"You didn't want Ms. Rose or Ms. Valkyrie to do it. Why Ms. Xaio Long?"

"Je ne sais quoi."

"Yes. I suppose so." Ozpin relented. "Over Ms. Schnee too, I suppose. Our Target has a predilection for the type who frequent such places. Ms. Xaio Long is a match for, at least in looks."

"She looks like a party girl who knows how to earn a little extra cash is what you're saying." Qrow wasn't happy about it. "I get it though. Maybe she is our best bet."

"She bragged about going clubbing at Beacon. She has experience I don't. Plus she has infinitely more time spent in a female body than me. She knows how to use it better than I can fathom."

"We should have a backup plan," Ozpin insisted.

"She can wear a wire and everyone else can be waiting outside. There's five of us in huntsman-shape. Speaking of shouldn't they be here for this conversation. Part of being open with everyone."

"I wanted to have a quick think-tank and see what you thought." Ozpin dismissed my jab at him. "Qrow trusts your instincts."

"I don't like any of it. I think somebody is going to get hurt. I think Don Corneo from what we know is a scumbag."

"And what do you think of Leonardo?"

I faltered for a moment. "I don't trust him. I don't like how Cinder and her allies snuck past him." If Ozpin thought hard about it he would see how I don't trust him either. I snuck past him. I could have gotten myself or somebody else killed.

And he picked me over some more qualified student who had a better, more authentic resume. He chose me anyways. Why? Was he incompetent? I sure used to be. Or could he actually see my potential and what I would become and thought it was worth the risk.

If so, then it was a hell of a risk. I could have been one of Salem's agents if only I wasn't such a failure. He trusted too easily in any case that was kind to him.

"If you don't mind me asking, uh- Mr. Arc, how did you get as strong as you are?"

It was Oscar this time and I was stumped for the question. I found my gaze flicking over his head to Qrow for a second who only offered me a shrug.

"What do you mean?" I wondered. "And it's just Jaune."

"Jaune, then. It's your mentality. You have this mindset that sets you apart from everyone else."

"I wasn't always this jaded. If you want strength look at Ruby." Emotional or physical.

"It's not that or at least not just that. I've already asked her too. She's something special. You are too, though. Even with the fate of the world as it is, you still train day in and day out and do everything you have to, even if it hurts you. You've even killed people. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're not afraid of the dirty work."

"It's not something to be proud of but Qrow's done it too."

"But he's not our age. Or your age, at least."

"I have to. I suppose. Or my friends, those that are still here, will bite it too. That keeps me going. What's left of my team and Ruby's team too."

"Can you teach me?"

"How to have friends? Haven't got a clue. Sorry."

"Not that. I need somebody to teach me swordsmanship. How to use my weapon. Or start to until Qrow is back up."

Qrow gave an enormous sigh from the chair. For my part I hesitated again. I wasn't the sort, didn't have the training myself. But this was one of those things I wasn't sure I could say no to.

The right thing to do would be to teach him. Pyrrha would want me to. Ruby might even ask me to. That pretty much sealed it.

"I won't take it easy on you." I drew the bastard sword and posited the cross shaped shield on my back. "Can't afford to."

"Really? That's fantastic! I was worried you didn't like me. Wait is this one of those things where you mean right now?"

"Why? Are you too busy?" I mocked him. He took it as friendly teasing. And it was, at least to some degree. The kid was not Ozpin. Not yet.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I can't lift my arms."

"Then I did my job."

"What did you do to him last night?" It was Weiss.

"Poor Oscar." Ruby bemoaned.

He could in fact lift his arms to shovel eggs into his mouth. He was hungry, more hungry than he was sore, which was good. His body was already about repairing the damage we did to his muscles.

"Eat more than you usually do." I ordered.

"I thought you're supposed to watch what you eat."

"If you're losing weight, not bulking up. You should eat until you're full."

"Look at you two." Ruby flowed with pride.

I felt myself flush at her affection despite myself.

"Seriously what did you do last night?" Nothing bothered the ice queen like being ignored.

"Just some light training. He's new at it and I still remember what that's like." I wasn't looking to bother her, though.

"You? Training someone else?"

If Weiss thought I'd disagree she'd be waiting a long time. "I know right."

"What's the joke?" Oscar asked.

"The joke is me. I'm awful and any of the girls here can kick my ass. You should have asked Weiss to train you. She uses a sword."

"Is that true?"

"Absolutely." I confirmed between bites of toast. "I've seen her use it."

"What did you teach him?" Yang wanted to know.

"Some of the basics of striking, how to block by rolling the wrist, then I made him do some fitness. Pushups, situps, other stuff, and then cardio."

"Sounds like you know what you're doing." Yang complimented.

"I certainly try."

"He's a slave driver. Do you work that hard every night?"

"A little harder since I'm in better shape." Yang poked my triceps as I said that. "Hey now. Hands to ourselves."

"You wanna go a few rounds. We're not exactly doing anything today." Yang stopped poking me.

"Yeah I suppose we should. Let me digest for a bit." Yang and the other members of RWY had been up before my team and I so they were already bored and rearing for something to do.

We had time to set up the gig with Don Corneo, Qrow was going nowhere slowly. That left us doing the same sort of shit we'd been doing for the last few weeks. Pretty much nothing as we waited for Leonardo Lionheart to come up with something.

"Boo." Yang booed me. "Nora's been telling me all about your semblance and I can't wait to see how it stacks up."

I shrugged apathetically. I wasn't going to go flipping around on a full stomach if I could help it. I just wasn't. Plus Ren had mentioned I'd started to fly when I had Limit. Near as I could tell it actually only let me hover a few inches off the ground but it still wasn't something I was going to push myself on.

"I'm sure you'll get your chance to smack me around."

"Aw come on. We three tanks have got to stick together." Nora said with her mouth full. She flexed for emphasis and I watched Ren stare at her. He couldn't help himself. The more things changed the more things stayed the same. I couldn't help but wonder how the two of them were getting along with my advice and Ruby's example.

Speaking of I wasn't sure how much of that was mine to reveal, of their relationship or mine. I figured they would come out when they were good and ready. Meanwhile, like most things, it was up to Ruby what happened with us.

"I can't wait to see it either. You should hear Ruby talk you up." It was Weiss again.

"Ruby is way too nice."

Ruby sweetly squawaked a little. "I am not."

"You are." I almost swooned. I couldn't help myself this time. Even when she was trying to deny it, all tough, she couldn't hide what she really was. I'd seen tough Ruby and this was not it. Not that tough Ruby wasn't hot as fuck either.

"Ugh. Get a room." Yang put her two cents in.

"Maybe we will." I countered.

"No way." Weiss's eyes flicked between Ruby and I. They went wide at Ruby's flushed expression. It was quiet enough that Yang marched on.

"Oh Vomit Boy's got back talk now. What crawled up you and gave you a spine?"

Ruby and Weiss were talking quietly which just left Oscar, and what was left of team JNPR munching away.

"Maybe I was always like this."

"You definitely weren't." Yang disagreed.

"Is Weiss really better than you?" Oscar asked me. He'd probably been waiting to ask for a while.

"I mean probably." I'd spent the last year fighting Grimm, bandits, and the agents of Salem. I wasn't a pushover, not anymore. Training was one thing but I'd honed my skills in honest to Gods combat. In a lot of ways my attacks were more lethal than what you'd get from pure training. The Cross-Slash was like that. I'd seen just how lethal they were yesterday. "She's been at it a while longer than me. You can probably learn from both of us. I wouldn't sweat it."

"Right. That makes sense. But you'll still help me with the fitness?" It was so fucking weird to have someone looking up to me. Really. Especially now that I was surrounded by some of my other friends from Beacon. It was one thing to hear compliments from Ren, Nora, or Ruby and quite another to look Oscar in the eyes and see admiration. It was uncomfortable. I looked away.

I gave him a nod in the periphery.

"Jaune, would you shed some light on this favor we owe to get Ruby's uncle back up and running, so to speak?" Ren asked me.

Right. Other than Oscar/Ozpin, Qrow, and myself nobody else knew about what we'd agreed to. Nobody had really asked about it either, all their attention was on one another and then on Ozpin and his magic.

"We need scroll keys out of Don Corneo. He's a gang leader rival to the woman who's helping us, Lil' Miss Malachite."

"Malachite… that name sounds familiar." Yang mumbled.

"Don't know what to tell you."

"Should we really be getting involved in the squabbles of gang lords." Weiss came back to the conversation.

"I don't know what to tell you either."

"Uncle Qrow thinks this is the best way for him to get his legs back. It's probably the best way." Ruby seemed resigned to it. "It's just some pass keys, right? So it's not too big of a deal. Not like running drugs or worse." Right. The less Ruby knew the better. Yet to really see if we'd made the right call on that one but...

"What's the plan? We running and gunning or busting some bustas?" Nora asked.

"No real plans yet. Don Corneo frequents a brothel on the lower levels though. We were talking about slipping one of you ladies in and squeezing it out of him." I was met with general silence. "Or I could wear a dress and do it."

"You? Please." Weiss shook her head, exasperated.

"If nothing else I know what guys like."

"It's almost like you want to wear a dress. One of us will do it." Yang disagreed. "Probably me. I don't need my Lil' sister exposed to such things. Plus Weiss is a prude and Nora is Nora."

Ruby stayed quiet.

"Hey!" Weiss protested half-heartedly. My gut told me she was happy to be excluded.

"You think I don't have femine wiles?"

"I think you'd go too fast for the leg breaking. I know how to put the squeeze on 'em."

"So I should pack my dress back up? A shame. I can rock purple." I gestured with my fork.

"I can do it." Yang affirmed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "And we get it Jaune; no attachment to your dick in particular."

"Really wouldn't go that far." Ruby mumbled.

"Are you serious? You are!" Weiss blurted much louder.

"What's your deal, ice queen?" Yang demanded.

"It's nothing." She stammered. "I just can't believe my team's vulgarity."

"But there does need to be leg breaking." Nora leaned back looking self satisfied. "Then if nothing else, you don't need to go in alone." Nora was a no-man left behind type which seemed to translate now to no woman sent in alone.

Yang pondered that. "Maybe."

"It merits discussion." Ren said something for the first time in ages.

"Not sure I like the sound of this. It sounds like torture." Ruby piped up. "Plus we'll be going into their territory."

"Does torturing a gang-lord count as torture. I mean really?" Yang seemed on board.

"We were also thinking you'd wear a wire. Just in case things went sideways." I interrupted. "And yeah maybe we'd send multiple people in. Nothing set in stone yet."

Yang shrugged and Weiss slowly stopped the red that crept up her neck.

Ruby picked her plate up and danced past me to go wash up. She was close enough as she passed by that I could pick up her smell. She even traced a hand across my shoulders in such a way that it didn't look like much and I wanted to reach out and grab her. I stayed seated, though, and Weiss followed her soon enough.

All was well at the breakfast table.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	27. I've Been Thinking II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Fighting Yang.

Fighting Yang. Fighting Yang. Fighting Yang,

I wasn't sure I was up for it. Whenever we fought back at Beacon it had been as one-sided as any of the others had been. She thrashed me because she was a monster of flame and fists. This time, though, she slammed her fists together and visibly winced. She looked down. Her gaze flickered across her knuckles, rotating her hands.

"Don't tell me you're out of practice." It took a lot of work to build up the kind of callouses that let you do the kind of boxing things she did. Not just on the hands but on the shins as well. She was known to kick with her box.

"I'm more than in good enough condition to take you on, Vomit Boy."

I wasn't what I once was. Sure, I still had the motion sickness that gave me that nickname but I was a killer now. If Yang wasn't on top of her game I could beat her. I knew myself. I was nice like that. I took matches off of Ruby now and she was a terror to behold.

You couldn't just train against people this good and not start to rival them. You couldn't fight the monsters I had fought and not gain a little edge.

Ruby wasn't just letting me win, either. Or if she was it was really really convincing. I'd taken her by surprise and beat her back with my raw strength. I was no match for her speed without my semblance but I'd shocked her with it.

I drew my sword in its broadest form. The shield wrapped perfectly around the smaller blade like my girlfriend had designed, and I waved the six-foot single edged blade around and down at my girlfriend's older sister.

Girlfriend. It was a funny word in my head, even. It wasn't something I thought about much but Ruby and I had grown close after Yang had abandoned the mission. I had been by Ruby's side. Not Yang.

"Try me. I will surprise you."

"So much confidence. But for how long?" She danced away from me with a similar angelic grace as her younger sister always possessed. Something a little extra beyond human. It must have come into being through a decade or more of having her aura unlocked.

I had tracked down her sister's enemies and I had faced Salem's monsters. I hadn't paused for recovery when my partner was taken. Actually taken. Yang had.

She'd flinched.

"You can do it Jaune!" Nora shouted.

"Yang," Ruby drew out the 'a' sound. "Don't take Jaune lightly." There must have been something sobering in Ruby's voice because Yang's eyes narrowed at me.

I heard it too. I wondered if the others heard the undertone of worry and urgency in Ruby's voice. To them it may have just sounded like another cheer. Yang and I heard differently from them if that was the case.

"Three." Nora started.

"Two." Ruby joined in.

"One." Ren nodded along with the words but stayed silent.

"Go!"

Our friends counted down from their comfortable positions by the sidelines.

I activated my semblance with barely a moment of concentration. The blue wisps wrapped around me and I saw the flare give Yang pause. I did not share her hesitation and I leaned forward. I glid inches above the ground in her direction one arm down, the other easily holding up the entire weight of the broadsword behind me.

I approached her with a reverse backflip that I turned into a sideflip and swung the sword vertically from behind me to in front of me. She blocked it by crossing her arms and our weapons clanked with a flash of sparks.

The force of my attack caused her to slide back across the ground. Her eyes went wide up at me and I chased her with two more horizontal strikes.

She tried to use the opportunity to check me, see if I over extended, but I just backed off. I stepped back, taking actual footsteps that kicked up dust, and warded her off with the long, long blade of Crocea Mors.

If I kept her spaced away from me and never let her close the gap then I'd never get hit. That was the first rule of warfare, don't get hit. She shot at me with her gauntlets, cracking in the morning air and the blow hit me in the chest and knocked me to the ground. I kicked myself back up but she had already stepped inside my range.

She punched me in the stomach, then the head. She wasn't respecting Limit, though, she was the one who over extended. I moved in a blue blur and Cross-Slashed her, no set up.

She'd fallen right in my range and I blew her off her feet. She rolled off the ground where she landed. Her hair flared up as I activated her semblance with the final hit of my Cross-Slash.

She was on fire as she stepped towards me with that same fluid grace. I went on the offensive, spacing her away with my sword. She deflected and tried to step in on me but I rotated back swinging the sword around my body once more. Her gauntlets clashed with my sword again and again but I never let her inside my range and I kept her four or more feet away from me at all times.

"Let. Me. Hit. You." She punctuated each word with a blast and a punch but I met each strong.

"Absolutely not." I swept the sword upwards when she collided with it one last time and drove her back. Her hair started to fizzle out. I needed to be patient. I needed to win slowly and surely. I couldn't defeat her all at once, I simply was not strong enough. But I could do something like death by a thousand cuts all while keeping her from ripping chunks of my aura out with those beefy gauntlets.

I hadn't had any chances to deal much damage but I also hadn't had much done to me. A good trade off but I only managed brief charges of Limit, as such I was a long ways off from getting even my second one.

Her hair finished fizzling back to normal and I could afford to be a tad more aggressive. I leapt forward bringing my sword down on top of her in a massive forward airborn attack.

It connected with her center of mass and rung her like a bell. I jumped juggling her through the air. Pressing the golden and silver sword upwards and caught her before she could touch the ground.

That was it for my combo and she brushed her hair from her eyes and resumed trying to get in on me. She nearly succeeded with a feint to one side but I resigned my position and backed off. Any engagement I didn't feel like I could win I would retreat like that. I bidded my time and waited for the openings she would give me.

I set up an opportunity. I'd been barraging her with the broadsword, now I stepped in close to her guard, took one hand off the sword's hilt and grabbed her.

She was shocked, by all accounts it was the worst move I could make, but I picked her up by the arm and slammed her into the ground.

She rolled with it and for my risk I didn't get much reward so I went back to the waiting game.

She had to give me openings because she had to try and get in. And she was trying to get in, desperately. We both knew that if she breached my space she could put in the work but getting into my zone was difficult.

She found her opportunity when I got impatient and over extended with a horizontal slash. She pushed off the blade and vaulted over it one leg at a time.

Then she started to hit me and she backed her attacks up with shotgun blasts. Jab. Cross. Hook. Cross. Body shot. Head hook. Body hook. Cross. Overhand. I reeled backwards and tried to get my sword between us but she was unrelenting. She stepped with me and pivoted around me at the same time, staying in an awkward position for me to deal with. Head hook. Body shot. Cross. I stepped with the oncoming haymaker and managed to clear some space between us.

She smirked at me. She knew that it had to hurt and it did. But I'd been eviscerated in my time since I'd last fought her back at Beacon and compared to that, these weren't too much. She'd ripped into my aura but it wasn't anything I hadn't felt before. I brushed the shotgun pellets off of me with my movement and we went back to playing my game.

I jabbed at her with the long edge of Crocea Mors and she tried to make another move to brush it aside. I rotated with her and delivered three solid chops to her body, faster than she could react to.

Like that, I had Limit again. Now the ball was in her court. I hit her hard, dashing with my attacks and using the long reach to knock her off balance. My horizontal slashes brutalized her and it was all she could do to block. I was too fast and strong and I hardly touched the ground as I fought.

She pranced away from me. For once she was the one that needed space and as she did I swept the blade vertically along the ground and let loose a blade beam. She was caught up in the attack and by the time it released her from the swirling blue mass, I was on top of her and I delivered a single upwards strike that ended way over my head.

She cartwheeled close to the edge and I gave her a moment of reprieve. If I'd been trying to kill her, this is about when I would have done it. I'd have forced her to retreat and battle me next to that ledge and I'd have tried to force her over it if I could.

Was it sick of me to be thinking about how I'd kill my friends? What the fresh fuck is wrong with me.

I tried to calm down and remind myself who this was and what I was doing. I wasn't here to kill Yang. I wasn't. It was just a fight.

I didn't press her. I held back and watched her breath hard. I didn't even charge my semblance for those moments. I just watched in mute horror at my own thought processes.

I was fucked up. I was on the fucked up side of things and I wasn't going to get better. I knew it with the same surety that I knew my own name. This shit was permanent.

I tried to shake it off and charge my semblance but my focus was off. Yang came at me again, she didn't have her own semblance activated this time, whatever threshold it took to activate I must have been shy of it when I went on my offense.

She got inside my guard and lit up my torso and head in a barrage of shotgun backed punches. She floored me, and I just lay there, beaten up by a girl, again, and thinking about my life.

"You had me running there, Jaune." She blew a kiss at me and waltzed back to the sidelines. "You did surprise me, for what it's worth."

"Well thank you." I said to the air just above me. I still refused to get up and reclaim my weapon. "Really means a lot."

"Are you alright, Jaune?" Ruby called out. I held a thumbs-up up above me.

I slowly rose to my feet and gathered my weapon. I was disappointed with myself. For a number of reasons this time, not just because I lost a battle I knew I could win.

I had hoped that the combat would get my mind off of things. Instead I was more acutely aware of my crimes than ever. Here I was surrounded by my close friends and all I could think about was death and murder.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I can't believe how fast you've gotten, Jaune." Weiss told me. "You-well…"

"You callin' me slow is that it? Watch it Weiss." She laughed at my faux offense. She tried to hide it behind her hand but didn't quite manage it.

"You just used to not be fast is all I'm saying. Now you're fast enough to keep up with Ruby, I bet."

"No. Nobody I know is that fast. She takes me apart."

"Hey I'm plenty fast with my glyphs, I'll have you know."

"You should see the kind of bullshit she can do with her semblance now. She just bursts apart into petals and then drifts behind me."

We sat and watched Ruby spar with Nora. Nora had the reach necessary to keep up with Ruby and she was plenty strong but it was coming down to speed and Ruby had it in spades.

Yang plopped down beside me, tapping my arm with a glass of water.

"Thanks," I said graciously accepting it. "Cheers."

"You've done good Vomit Boy. I was worried about Ruby. I'm glad she had you watching her back."

"She was watching mine too. She really slapped me together, like you wouldn't believe."

"We're you a bit of a mess?" Yang poked me.

"I was all over the place. Depressed as all hell. She showed me the light about it."

"You still want revenge, though, for what happened to Pyrrha." Yang took a drink of her own water. She wasn't the sort to beat around bushes I would rather she had a bit of modesty about.

Weiss was at least easy to understand since she had broached the subject with trepidation.

"I do. And I'm going to get it too."

"Atta boy." Yang patted me on the back. "Fuck those bastards."

"Well…" we both looked towards Weiss as she trailed off. "What? Don't you think it could be dangerous? Plus Ruby wouldn't want you to do it. Plus Pyrrha wouldn't want you to do it either."

"Tough shit." I murmured. "I want to. Maybe my revenge and the justice for her life is about more than 'what she would have wanted.'"

"Then you admit you're doing it for yourself."

"At least in part." I confessed. "At least. But considering what was robbed from me, aren't I allowed that. Pyrrha could have been right here."

Yang winced at something in my tone. "Maybe Weiss is right."

"I thought you were on my side."

"I am on your side. Just not if it kills you. If you're slow and careful about it, then I'd be in your camp." She sighed.

"Hasn't killed me yet. And besides, who knows when we'll encounter Cinder, if ever."

"You don't believe that." Weiss accused.

"No, I don't. But I do want to be ready, whatever that means."

"You already know what I think." Ren muttered lowly. "The best revenge is letting go and living well."

"I am living pretty well. Letting go was never an option, though. Would you be able to let go?" I asked him. I already knew the answer. He couldn't let go of his father and mother. He wouldn't be able to let go of Nora.

He didn't respond and he didn't look at me.

I felt like a jackass but I was right.

"Does Ruby know you feel this way?" Weiss asked.

"Everyone knows I feel this way now. Everyone important that is."

"Well… so long as Ruby knows…"

"You can't be serious Weiss," Yang disagreed. "He's going to get himself killed."

"I'm trying to be pragmatic."

"I'm also right here." I protested lightly. "In the room, so to speak."

I watched as Ruby was pushed back by Nora. She let out a grunt of exertion that could only be described as adorable before throwing herself back at her opponent. She twirled about her scythe and tried to impale Nora with Crescent Rose but she was blocked by the shaft of Nora's hammer.

"Jaune if Pyrrha couldn't beat Cinder you can't either. You'll die." Yang informed me helpfully. It was a good reminder I suppose. "What do you think will happen to Ruby, then. To all of us?"

I probably would die.

Sobering.

Ruby… I thought about what she told me at the top of the carnival. I'd be breaking her poor little Ruby heart. It made me hesitate. It made me flinch, even. If I fought Cinder I would probably die and where would that leave my little rose?

Was I willing to fight to my death, then. Knowing what I would leave behind here in the world of the living if I should actually fall.

All the late night kisses and all the times she held me close, I'd be giving all that up and for what? A chance at a prayer at revenge Pyrrha wouldn't even want me to have.

"I can't let it go. I just can't. Not yet at least." I sighed. "What am I supposed to do? Just give up on getting justice for Pyrrha's soul?"

"That's a rough one bud." Yang mumbled. I didn't look at her. She certainly didn't have the answers I wanted. I became a murderer over these things, I couldn't just give up now, could I? "Remember how you grabbed me in our fight. You didn't rush into it. You conditioned me and surprised me. You set it up slowly and carefully. That's how you should go about this revenge business."

I thought about it. I didn't even get that much payoff for that grab either.

It was a selfish and ugly thing I was considering. I'd killed, at least in part for Ruby but just as much so I'd killed for Pyrrha. To have the shot at my vengeance. Now that I sat down, breathed in, and looked at things in terms of the people I would hurt not if I failed, but when I failed, it wasn't much of a contest.

I had to give up.

I felt like I was finally waking up for the first time in months. I had things here that I didn't want to lose. Not even for the revenge I wanted so desperately. I've been a selfish prick. Ruby's been worried about me this whole time. I'd been making her worry. Weiss had been right last night.

I needed to put this behind me. Not for my own sake, I didn't deserve it, but for Ruby's and Ren's and Nora's.

Fuck.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	28. Proud Ice Queen I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Weiss POV)

Jaune approached me with a backflip.

He flew across the ground, sword and shield in hand, reversed, floating tractionless, and backflipped at me.

Whatever machinations he had in his mind led him to using the shield with a longsword rather than the titanic broadsword. His shield a giant lowercase 't' shape as he flew about.

I waved my weapon through the air and pinpricks of light followed it. The light hovering in place before it flickered out in a projectile at him.

He flipped past the projectiles without blocking them and slashed at me twice with the straight blade, it was a little over three feet long. I had to engage him with Myrtnaster directly. My own weapon was shorter than his. In a battle of straight range I'd lose.

I tried to fence at him but he was strong enough to shove my weapon out of the way and send me spinning. I didn't fight the motion, I wanted the space from him. I summoned part of my knight. Just the right arm and his sword, I grunted with the exertion of the summoning.

Jaune caught the massive sword on his shield. He had to brace with both hands behind his shield, but he held. It was his turn to grunt with exertion. He spent his semblance, and threw the blade off of him. He looked visibly upset about spending his semblance on a defensive manner. His face was dark and scrunched in a scowl. He had to take physical steps on his next assault against me.

Imagine.

Jaune wasn't like he used to be. That much was obvious from even our first conversation. His and Yang's fight just drew it out and this, our sparring match, was icing on the cake. He had a strategic mind second to none of us and his instincts were sharp and finely tuned towards the Grimm according to Ruby. He'd read the Knuckelavee with little more to go on than footprints. It wasn't his experience with the Grimm but a preternatural sixth sense about where it would go, how it would fight. A true hunter's sense.

Now with his semblance and strength he had the power to back that up. He was a threat. A real honest to Gods threat.

He met me again but without his blue juice he wasn't fast enough to out-spar me. I fenced him with thrusts that met his shield and he tried to counter attack from behind it with a strike that I blocked but sent my teeth ringing. I couldn't imagine trying to block constantly like Yang had when his semblance was active. He was unearthly strong even without it and it only made him stronger while active by an order of magnitude, according to Ruby.

I couldn't believe that Ruby had found a boyfriend before I did. It was unbelievable! And she'd had sex-

Jaune hammered me like a nail with his shield. Then he clipped me with his weapon.

I'd gotten distracted.

I gathered a glyph behind me and in front of me behind Jaune then darted between it Jaune and the next glyph then I summoned another, and another. I tore into his aura, ripping into it as I darted from one glyph to the next. I did damage until I activated his own semblance. Then he reached out and tried to grab me by his shield hand.

I'd seen that before and dodged it but I had to back off. I summoned my knight, this time I had enough moments to call forth the entire body of the knight. Jaune stared it down with a growl and rolled his shield wrist, checking both of our aura.

The nerve!

The knight paced forward and tried to crush Jaune but he flew out of the way, low to the ground. He jumped and slammed his shield into my knight's chest. It rocked my knight. It rocked my knight right to its knees but it punched Jaune center of mass with a fist nearly as large as he was.

He rolled with it.

Could he just stay down?

He met my knight again which was slow to rise unlike Jaune who became a blue blur. He hit my knight with a five hit attack that held Jaune in mid-air while he slashed and carved blue calligraphy into my knight. My knight collapsed into dissolving white light and I fell with it. My aura was nearly exhausted. I leaned on Myrtnaster which had been stabbed into the ground. Jaune came falling down on me with both hands on his sword in a massive overhead strike. He faltered when he saw I'd fallen and he nearly fell on his face in his attempt to cancel the attack he already had momentum behind.

Maybe he was still a little clumsy.

"You out?" He asked like he didn't already know. Ruby had insisted we hook up our scrolls to Jaune's so he could monitor us in a real fight.

I panted and nodded up at him and he offered me his shield hand. He easily pulled me to my feet.

"Thanks."

"No problem," he dismissed.

"Ruby told me about the two of you."

"I thought she might." He grinned. It was a quiet proud grin. Like he was proud of not just guessing what Ruby would do but of what she and him were. I wondered if Neptune had ever grinned like that about me. I rather doubted it. "I told you, you hold a special place in her heart."

"You defeated me, well done." I tried to change the subject.

"Just today. Tomorrow will be different."

"Plus I was out of practice."

"Of course," he said to my excuse without a hint of sarcasm. "You probably didn't have the time to practice while in Atlas."

Well, not against another opponent. All I had to work on was my semblance. Even that seemed to pale in comparison to the work he had done on himself.

_He'd had real opponents. _I told myself. _He saw actual combat. _

"Jaune you fought Salem's agents, correct?"

"Just the one, but yeah. I did."

"What was he like?"

"He was a faunus. A scorpion faunus." He clarified, thinking. He put a hand on his chin. "He fought with his tail. He was fast and cruel. We only beat him because Ruby snuck up on him while he was playing with me."

"Playing with you how?"

"He was torturing me with his weapons. He wanted to hurt me before he wanted me to die." Jaune reached down to pull up his shirt and revealed a set of bifurcating scars on his chest and stomach. "We cut off his tail. Sent him packing." Hard muscle rippled beneath the orange scars leading up to a broad well-defined chest.

"So he was murderous." I went on.

Jaune gave me a strained look. He broke eye contact with me and dropped his shirt.

"He was… he was more than murderous. He liked what he was doing. He introduced himself as Tyrian but I've just been calling him 'The Scorpion.'"

"Tyrian." I murmured. "Was that before or after you and Ruby got together."

"A little after." He answered without hesitation. He didn't even seem to think the question odd.

"What's it like?"

"What's what like?" He gave me a look of pure Jaune confusion.

"Being with Ruby."

"Oh. Uh… it's mostly the same. We hang out. Talk about our feelings. That sort of thing."

"Except you also…" I trailed off.

"Also kiss. Yeah. Though that's been lacking since her uncle showed up."

Buffoon. Ruby had implied that they were also having sex.

"You don't need to worry though."

"Why would I be worried?" I wondered, a little offended.

"Well she's your partner. I wanted you to know I had no intention of taking that from you." He hesitated a moment. "Or her." He added.

"Oh. I see."

"Isn't that what you were worried about. Seemed like something was bothering you." He squinted his eyebrows at me.

Well yes. It was that my little immature partner was already having sex with her boyfriend, but I was hardly going to get into that with said boyfriend. Then again she was seventeen. Not at all too young for that kind of thing, besides Ruby actively saw combat. It wasn't like I could honestly say it was a step too far for her. It was just odd then, that I hadn't. Hadn't really considered it, even.

Sure Neptune had been good looking but it wasn't like my thoughts had been on that. Well, maybe occasionally. I just had never trusted him enough. He'd flirt with me then run around and flirt with someone else. I suppose Ruby just trusted Jaune and why not? It sounded like he'd regularly put his life on the line for her. Compared to that, sex seemed small.

It wasn't, of course. My whole team stuck our necks out for each other and we were hardly all… well. I suppose it took an extra special something. An attraction as well as trust and Ruby and Jaune had always been close and gotten along well. Maybe it was just inevitable.

"I was just curious. That's all. The timeline."

He seemed content with that. He nodded along, head bobbing at the words.

"I wanted to talk to you a bit more about Cinder." He'd grown silent earlier when we discussed his revenge.

"Please Weiss, I don't want to talk or think anymore about that."

"Would you rather talk to Ruby about it."

"Maybe." He hedged, but he continued anyways. "I'm just not ready to let go. Letting go of Pyrrha is just too much to ask of me. I want to be able to, even. I want to live without this burning ache. Not even Ruby has been able to dissuade me of what I must do when Cinder and I cross paths." He repeated softly. "What I _must_ do."

"I don't understand. Don't you care about what you and Ruby have?"

"Of course I do." He said flatly.

"You'll lose it."

"Stop it. I already know that." His tone terse.

"Do you? Don't you know how much she cares about you? We all do."

"Please." I found him begging. Begging. For someone who had grown so strong to actually beg for me to stop as though my words were daggers came as a shock. "I'm not ready to let Pyrrha go. I'm not."

I frowned down my nose at him. I sighed off to one side. "Then let us help you. Let Ruby help you."

"She already is. I'll get there, I promise. I just need more time. Look, just because I'm not ready now doesn't mean I won't ever be. Believe me when I say I want to. I want to be that for Ruby. For all of you."

I looked at Jaune and the realization struck me that he had really been through the ringer but maybe he was actually getting better. He'd said he used to be more depressed and Ruby had helped him through that. Maybe I just had to let her. She'd helped me too.

"You'll talk to Ruby more about it?" I half asked, half demanded.

"I will," he vowed.

"Hey!" Yang harassed. "You two done flirting?"

I sputtered slightly, unable to get my words out at the same time Jaune shouted, "fucking maybe! What's it to you?"

"It's getting on dinner time is what it is," Yang bounced back. "Come on in."

"Fair enough." Jaune sighed. "I am hungry."

"I could eat. I suppose." My stomach betrayed me. Nearly a full day of sparring had left me famished, it was natural. Organic even. Nothing to be embarrassed about.

Jaune smiled down at me, he had nearly a whole head and a half of height on me. "Don't worry. I'll never tell."

Heat crept up my neck a little at that.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Dinner was fish and grilled vegetables. Ren had cooked the flank of salmon up over the course of the afternoon. He was no professional chef but he was good. Grilled broccoli, steamed cauliflower, and salmon steak made a stark contrast to our first dinner here.

It was no less delicious than the soup and noodles the night before.

"Yaaaang stop it."

"But look at how much you've grown." Jaune snuck a peak over at where Yang poked Ruby's sides and took a long, long drink.

I wasn't sure who else noticed it but I sure did. I guess Ren and Nora might already know and whatnot. Then only Qrow mattered to Ruby's plans and Yang was too distracted to see the looks Jaune was giving out.

"You've gained a couple inches too, unlike the Ice Queen."

"Hey," I protested around my own drink. "I've grown plenty. At least as much as Ruby did."

"Not where, well, you know," Yang disagreed.

Jaune actively choked and Nora slapped him on the back. Several hard thumps later and he was back to breathing. I glared around the table daring anyone to agree with Yang, none of them did.

I turned my nose up at Yang, though.

"Soon you'll be just like your big sister." Yang went on in Ruby's direction.

Ruby blanched. Somewhere between a gag and a sigh, I was glad she was at least somewhat on my side. "I certainly hope not."

"What's that mean? I thought you wanted to grow up just like me."

"Yeah when I was like six. When was the last time you were in a stable relationship."

Now it was Yang's turn on the backfoot. "Well…"

"I mean you had the occasional fling back at Signal but at Beacon even Weiss got more action than you."

"What do you mean 'even' me." I sort of already knew the answer.

"Neptune." Ruby replied, intentionally missing the point, I was sure.

"Weiss aside, I got plenty of action."

"The only person you danced with at the dance was Blake. Your own partner. She danced with Sun, too, though."

"I was busy, Blake was in a depression. The whitefang and all that." Yang defended. She huffed and looked around the table but nobody else said anything. Jaune had his head down in his food and Nora was suspiciously quiet. Stones and glass houses and all that.

"So, about this mission." I had to wonder. Changing the subject was just a pleasant bonus. "Isn't about time somebody made some decisions about it."

"Well Jaune was intentionally keeping things free in case somebody had some ideas about it." Ruby explained. "But yeah. No sense in delaying the inevitable."

"I was thinking Ren and I case the joint first." Jaune took a bite of salmon steak. "Get a layout of the interior. Then we wait and slip you girls in when the good Don makes a stop by."

"We could always ambush him when he's coming and going," Ruby returned.

"I thought we'd rather keep the fighting in the streets to a minimum," Jaune disagreed.

"But on the inside, won't they know we don't work there?" I cut in. We couldn't just walk in and pretend to be one of the girls. There was no way it was that simple.

"Maybe. It depends on what kind of outfits you are wearing. From my understanding all the girls wear these bee outfits. Hence the name, Honey Bee Inn." Jaune explained. At Ruby's look he went on. "Qrow told me. I have uh-yet to be inside the establishment."

"We just need to get our hands on a set of those then," Nora slammed her fork on the table. "Preferably more than one."

"This seems ripe for disaster," I chipped in. The entire heist my friends were planning was fit to collapse if just one of a thousand things went wrong.

"Which is why whoever goes in will wear a wire. Qrow and I have been rigging something up," Jaune went on.

"Is there an alternative? We need to get those keys," Yang wondered at me. "We'll just threaten to rip his dick off. That'll make him comply."

"The problem isn't that. It's getting in position to do that," I disagreed. "If it was so easy to threaten and bully him, the Malachites would have done it."

"We need information, then." Ruby concluded. "Jaune why don't you see what else you can find out about the Don with Qrow. Then the rest of us will have Ren check out the inn and see if we can't smuggle ourselves in. If we can get in once, we can get in twice. Preferably with those costumes the second time."

Ren sighed and Jaune leaned back. "I bet I can find a few people who'll tell me something about him. I'm not sure how much I want to know about his proclivities, though."

"You're not one of the ones getting close to the guy who frequents the brothel." Yang pointed her fork at him. Jaune raised his hands in surrender. "I'm the one getting close to those proclivities."

Gross. Maybe Yang was right about me being prudish and maybe I shouldn't fight her on it. I certainly wanted to be nowhere near the man but I had the feeling I'd be getting closer than I liked to the despicable Don.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	29. Flower Girl III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Ruby POV)

I watched Jaune wheel Qrow away. They said they were headed to the Malachites' bar first without any real direction afterwards. I suppose they'd start turning up stones there and see where that led.

I really needed to work up the guts to tell Qrow about Jaune. Qrow trusted him, he even liked Jaune. I really was just stalling on that front but family was hard. I'd never brought a boyfriend home before. Not that I was bringing Jaune to my house. He'd already been there though, before we were dating. The point was I wasn't sure Qrow would object to Jaune at this point. They were like two peas in a pessimistic pod. Qrow even shared his flask with Jaune after Jaune got roughed up that day.

I wanted to go to him so badly, then. He came back soaked in blood and we really hadn't had the chance to talk about it, even. We hadn't had the chance to really talk since the Gold Saucer when I told him how much he meant to me and how I truly felt.

The real trouble was Yang. I wasn't really sure how she would react to the news. I mean she knew Jaune was a good guy. He was trustworthy and wore his heart on his sleeve. Now she sort of knew the alarming competence that he had developed so she couldn't even complain about that. Jaune was a man now.

Pyrrha's and my work. I could be proud of that.

On the other hand, Yang certainly wouldn't handle the news we were sleeping together well. She was my big sister. That pretty much said it all but she'd done so much to raise me, too. She wanted to keep me safe and small. That's what she still saw me as but I was too big for that now. She'd learn, we just needed baby steps first, probably. Maybe a kiss on the cheek around her to start.

I sighed.

I missed being kissed by him. I pressed my fingers against my lips as I imagined him taking them again. All passion and want. Heat flushed my face as I thought of the last time we were together in the shower here. His body pressed against mine and quiet gasps leaving my lips. Steam and need between us and nothing else.

It sucked having to hide things. Jaune hadn't complained since I'd told him what I wanted but I'd like to believe he was suffering a little too. It wasn't cruel, it just showed what he was just willing to do for me. He was willing to do a lot for me.

He'd killed with me in his heart twice now, I knew. He was willing to get his hands dirty and when things got ugly he was right there up front with it.

I needed to prove I was like that too. I needed to show that I could lead with that same force of will that he had.

"What's the plan Ruby?" Weiss asked me. Like I was supposed to know how to infiltrate a brothel. Just because I knew some things now didn't make me an expert on brothels!

"Ren goes in." I said. "And gets a lay of the place." He didn't look happy about it. "How many exits and entrances? That sort of thing." I was quick to try and reassure him.

"Outfits?" He asked.

"If you can get your hands on some, sure. Shoot for something Yang's size. Or any of our sizes, really." Anything was better than nothing.

He glanced around at each of us, as though taking a mental stock of each of our outfits one last time. He was looking like each of us like we were sending him off to die much more than he was checking us out and his gaze showed it.

"Not Ruby's." Yang interrupted.

"Yes. Even mine." I ordered over her. I shot her a glare. And she shot one right back, slightly incredulous. I never said out loud that I would do it but I would. This is important. Jaune would do the reverse, not that that thought was nice to have. I had to be willing to go the miles I had to be willing to go. "If you can get your hands on it, yes absolutely. We cover a wide range of heights and sizes so if you get one thing it might just about do it." Yeah, I'd prefer if Yang did it, but if I had to...

Ren gave a single slow nod. "Do we, uh know where this place is?"

"Jaune said it was on the lower levels, right?" Nora brought up. "How big could the lower levels be?"

"Well it's the biggest of the levels." Weiss corrected lightly.

"Uh guys. Jaune left directions and an address." Oscar waved a hand behind our little pow-wow. He had a sticky-note in his hand. "So you don't have to guess about that."

"Oh uh." I stammered. Here was Jaune covering for me again. Thinking a few steps ahead. "Good. That's good. We don't have to guess about that, that is."

"I don't think they'll just have a box of outfits by the door." Nora chipped in again. "How do you suppose he gets some? Past sleeping with one of the girls I doubt he'll be in position to get his hands on their clothes."

"Plus wouldn't they keep the outfit on? Isn't that the whole appeal?" We all turned to look at Oscar. "I mean…"

It was too late for him to save any measure of bright red face, but he may have had a point. Nora, for one, didn't look happy about Ren going so far. I wasn't super comfortable with the idea, either. Even those of us going to seduce the Don were only doing it to get into position.

None of us intended on going through with the deed.

"We'll just improvise. We'll wire you up." I said. I grabbed the wire and gear Qrow had put together. "Put this on." It was basically earbuds that hooked up to his scroll and we'd just be mid call with him while he was in. Bing, bang, boom. He was wired up. Ren threaded it under his outfit and plugged it into his scroll. They had modified a microphone next to his ear. Something subtle but it would ensure whoever was wearing it could be heard by those of us outside. It wasn't unusual for someone our age to walk around with one headphone in.

Not even suspicious.

"Improvisation is not my strong suite," Ren sighed.

"Do we just stay here while he goes in or…" Weiss asked.

"Maybe..." I thought for a moment. "No, better to be close. We'll find a restaurant or hang-out. We'll be nearby," I assured Ren.

He breathed in and out meditatively but said nothing. I thought maybe he was relieved but it was hard to tell with Ren.

Nora seemed to actually know and reached out and touched his sleeve. "You'll do fine." It was a small sign of affection but was made larger by Ren's silence. Yang even looked away from the two of them.

He gave her a single martial nod.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"So this is what the lower levels are like?" Nora wondered. "Bit of a mess, isn't it?"

"Jaune's been hanging out down here?" Weiss asked. We watched a dust bomb get sold over a counter like a candy bar. "Alone?"

"Qrow's been with him. For the most part," I defended. It wasn't like Jaune had been waltzing around by himself. He'd been pushing my handicapped uncle around. Which, okay, I saw Weiss's point.

In a fight, Jaune would have been basically alone. I suppose he had been, too, that day he killed someone. My uncle wouldn't have been able to do anything other than watch.

I really needed to talk to him.

He'd acted comfortable down here in the lower levels. I knew he had some criminal background but as I watched weapons freely exchange I couldn't help but wonder what I'd been consigning him to. Had he really been relaxed down here. I know Yang looked like she was feeling fine but I could tell her skin was crawling from how much she was looking around. Jaune would get an entirely different kind of attention than Yang would, I knew that, but still.

I'd just been relaxing above and never knew. Never even gave it much thought. I'd been baking cookies for God's sake and Jaune had been here with people baking bombs. I wasn't sure I wanted to think about what Malachites' bar was like and beyond.

I mean he had killed somebody in a bar fight.

I really, really wanted to talk to him.

We found the Honey Bee Inn. A multi floored white building with many bright signs and neon hearts near the entrance. We tried not to stand outside and gawk at the place we'd be infiltrating in all our own bright colors.

We found a bar across the street and Yang walked in with a confident look. She lowered her shades and looked around and no one asked us for our IDs. I mean Nora, Weiss, and I were short enough that I was sure the guy behind the counter had questions. On the whole though, he didn't seem to mind so long as we paid upfront. Which we did.

I meagerly sipped the alcoholic drink Yang had ordered for me with a grimace and tried to keep a clear head. Ren marched into the Honey Bee Inn with his wiretap turned on and connected to Nora's scroll set to the speaker which sat in the middle of the table.

"I'm in." Ren murmured. "There's a bar inside and… and a bunch of girls. They're not wearing much."

"Well you're in the right place." Yang reassured dryly.

"Eyes to yourself sonny." Nora warned. I was glad she was at least having a good time. Or having something.

"Get yourself a drink, look casual," I advised.

"Roger that." Okay well if he kept saying 'roger that' outloud his cover was blown. "What should I order? I've never been in a bar before."

"Just a whiskey or vodka. You're a big guy," Yang informed him.

"Is prostitution even legal here?" Weiss asked the table. That seemed like a fact worth knowing.

"Probably not," Yang enunciated each syllable slowly.

"The girls are just acting like waitresses," Ren muttered. "Vodka." He said a little louder.

"On the rocks." Yang continued.

"On the rocks." Ren echoed. He figured that she was giving him instruction awfully fast for somebody who professed to not think fast on their feet.

"No one would order one dry," Yang went on. "Just relax and trust me."

We heard Ren sigh through the microphone and I could imagine him nodding. Yang had street smarts that would help with this. There was a reason we wanted to get her alone in a room with Corneo.

"Do you have a plan to get their outfits?" Weiss asked.

"Maybe." Yang's gaze flickered over to Nora.

"Well don't leave us in the dark, spit it out already." Nora exclaimed.

"Ren, when a waitress comes up to you tell her you like the outfits but that you have a girlfriend. Tell her you have a fetish for it or whatever."

"What?" Nora wondered.

"You can't be serious." Weiss wasn't in either.

"I don't know that I can do that." Ren told the microphone.

"So what? That he just wants to, like, buy one?" I asked. The concept seemed so foreign.

"Why not?" Yang wondered.

"Actually…" Weiss weighed in. "This could work."

"That's what I'm saying. He likes the outfit just not any girl in there in one. It's the perfect excuse. It's shady, it's kinky, and he's willing to pay cash. That should be pretty normal."

I wondered for a second if Jaune ever wanted me to dress up like something. We were so fresh into things that it wasn't like we needed to spice anything up. I felt my face flush slightly at the pleasant memories. Thoughts for another time.

"Okay." Ren breathed. "Okay. I'll give it a try."

"Well we really only get one shot at it. Don't mess up." Yang gave him the business. "And try to get more than one. Tell them you have more than one girlfriend."

Weiss gave her a look.

"What? Being poly isn't as rare as people make it seem. Especially here in Mistral. People are pretty open minded in this part of the world."

"I-I suppose." Weiss stuttered out. She got this way about stuff like this. Weiss was somebody I could talk to about anything, we were besties like that, but that doesn't mean I'd actually talk to her about anything, we were besties like that, I suppose.

"It's not like that in Atlas, then," I asked.

She shook her head.

"Sounds uptight, Ice Queen. You don't need any of that." Yang stretched her bionic arm over her head, getting at her back a little.

"Hey!"

"How are you doing handsome?" A woman's voice crackled through Nora's phone. "Can I get you anything?"

"Yeah, um you see the thing is I have some friends, who are girls, girlfriends, even." Ren stuttered out. "And we were wondering if we, well, I was wondering, anyways, if I could buy a pair off of you guys. See I'm sort of into the look, if you understand."

"I see…" the girl's voice came through. "How many girlfriends a guy like you have? The good looking huntsman type."

"Ah…" I could practically hear Ren thinking furiously. "Four? Four."

I mean we'd told him to go for as many as possible.

"How much money you got?" The woman whispered conspiratorially. "I think I can help you out."

"Tell her we'll pay a hundred fifty for each outfit." Yang pumped a fist.

Ren did some quick math. "Um I'll pay you six hundred Lien."

"No, no, sweetheart. How much money do you _have?_"

I heard Ren swallow through the mic.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"She made me open my wallet and everything." Ren bemoaned. "I'm out two grand!"

"Easiest money she ever made." Yang laughed. Ren had delivered with a box full of these honey-bee costumes. They had fuzzy bras with bright blue wings on the back. They came with these black and yellow striped bottoms which did not leave much to the imagination. The outfits left the midriff exposed, Ren was right, the girls inside were not wearing much.

The two pieces weren't that much more exposing than a swimsuit, I supposed. I held one up to my own body.

We were back in our hideout rental, and digging through the box Ren had made out with. He was holding his face in his hands while Nora patted his shoulder.

"I gave her your heights and I think she just guessed, I'm not sure how well they'll fit unless there's something about girls I don't know about."

"Oh. There's a lot you don't know about girls." Nora kept pating his shoulder. "That isn't one of them, though."

"I think she did decent." Yang said holding up the largest set to herself. "These bras are a bit on the one-size fit all kind. No matter if you show some underboob, sideboob, or cleavage. Kinda the point, even. Just need the important bits to be covered up. Y'all might have to do some switching, though."

"What did I miss?" Oscar came around a corner. He saw Yang holding up the fuzzy cups and round bottoms and said aloud. "Oh my Gods."

"Oh please." Yang threw the bra and bottom over her shoulder, she flicked her waist-length yellow hair back at the same time. "I'm not even wearing it yet. I will rock this."

I thought Oscar was about to burst a blood vessel, his face went so red. I giggled a little at his awestruck look.

Yang's hair went with it better than mine and Nora's would but I thought Weiss's would do fine. She cheated though, her hair looked nice in everything. Especially something like this where the white would contrast with the black.

I imagined it now, looking more silver than white, petite breasts covered with the little fuzzy cups and felt heat climb up my neck.

I shook it off as Jaune walked in. He was wiping his face off with his shirt, forehead sweat, mostly. His shirt went up and the heat came back, riding all the way up my face as I got a good look at his stomach and a bunch of warm pleasant memories rushed me.

I sighed when I saw the beginnings of the massive scars and his shirt lowered.

I felt like slapping myself awake. Maybe that alcoholic drink had left me more dazed than I pleased but the warmth felt nice.

"Jaune!" I shouted, holding the outfit up still. I watched his eyes go wide and an adorable blush ride him up. I grinned which only faded slightly as Qrow rode up behind him.

"Where," Jaune enunciated, "did you guys get your hands on those."

"The Honey Bee Inn of course!" Nora exclaimed.

"Right. The bee stuff should have tipped me off."

"What do you think?" I asked, holding the outfit over me.

"Yeah Jaune?" Nora bullied. "What's on your mind?"

"Um…" he managed cutely. Yang was right, I wasn't even in the thing. I already felt… _powerful_ in a way. I kinda liked it.

"Eyes to yourself kid." Qrow grunted. "That's my niece you're looking at."

"I'm getting a good look, too." He was still staring. He was staring hard enough to make me blush some more and when someone looked away it was me. He looked at me like he was hungry. It had been a little while. I suppose I sort of invited it on us with how I'd gotten his attention.

"Yeah?" Qrow asked. His gaze flickered between us, like he was figuring something out, he rolled his eyes and muttered about kids. "Well we learned some shit about the Don you're probably not going to like."

"He likes new girls. They hire on new staff every time he visits the Honey Bee Inn. He gets bored fast and he likes virgins," Jaune said.

"Wow, who'd you have to beat up to learn about that?" Nora asked.

"Some guys. They were obstinate," Jaune said. He looked his knuckles over and I noticed the skin was rolled like he'd been punching something hard. Probably skin over bones. "And over what was basically gossip, no less. Still it should help with the plan. Slipping some of you girls in next time he's around. You'll go unnoticed if you mix with the new staff."

I had to wonder what he had been up to while this time I was out with the gals drinking. It seemed he'd outdone me again in his commitment to the cause.

I fumed silently and lowered the clothes.

"It's as good a plan as any." Weiss folded her own brassiere and bottoms over one arm.

"You're going in too, Weiss?" Jaune asked.

Weiss said, "I suppose I am. The plan was to get as many of us in as possible, right?"

Jaune just nodded and shot me a sideways glance. His concern did him credit but I needed to be in there. Boots on the ground, so to speak. Good thing the getup didn't come with heels or I'd be screwed.

They came with these fuzzy shoes.

"Well this is better than just Yang and I going in, and you boys get to see us in these." Nora leaned back. "Win, win."

Jaune shot a look over to his comrade in testosterone on the couch. "What did you guys do to Ren?"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	30. Proud Ice Queen II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Weiss POV)

I wanted to cover myself up with my hands. Instead I took a deep breath and brushed my ponytail back with them. I could tell Yang wasn't all that comfortable, either despite her bravado and Ruby was blushing like the virgin she wasn't. Nora was the only one who seemed relaxed, but only just so. She seemed ready more than anything.

The outfits were tight all over and were really, really revealing. Nora, Ruby, and I had had to do some trading of the fuzzy brassieres to get us each in some that would fit over ourselves. Even a two piece swimsuit possessed more substance than these bras did. The only apparatus covering our backs were the tiny blue wings and some thin wiry straps.

I may as well have been naked for all the good it honestly did.

We'd given up trying to hide a wire on our persons. No clothing to hide it behind. And with all that in order, we walked in through the back entrance Ren had spotted in the Honey Bee Inn.

Yang's black and yellow prosthetic only matched the outfit and it seemed likely that she'd be the one chosen for the Don's perversions and this could all be over and done with. Her violet eyes were bright and her unnatural beauty stood out even amongst our quartet of huntresses.

"Ah, here they are now. You must be the new girls." A woman inside distinctly not wearing a bee outfit noted us. She ran down a clipboard and frowned but made no protest of our arrival. Girls probably came and went here. "Good, the Don is already here and waiting in the presidential suite."

Yang's arm earned a once over but nothing more. Prosthetics were rare and expensive which would explain why a common and otherwise beautiful girl was here in a place like this. Debt was a thing even down here and a girl theoretically had bills to pay. That I did understand.

I realized I was partially covering myself by rubbing one arm with the opposite hand and stopped. It was a nervous habit, unbecoming of me.

My own meager chest was not much compared to Yang's or Nora's. Even Ruby was more buxom than I. It was unlikely I was going to be selected and I needed to relax. I was here to provide support for Yang with my semblance should the worst come to pass.

I was even more naked without my trusty weapon. Without it I was exposed and knee deep in enemy territory. But at least I had my glyphs. I was thankful that I wasn't Ruby or Nora who were truly weaponless. Though Nora was strong enough to lay an ordinary person low. The woman with the clipboard led us past a bar and up a flight of stairs in the corner of the tavern.

We were strung out there like a rack of meat on display. The orderly took her hands to us and arranged us neatly in a line for the Don to choose from. He evidently didn't allow men in his company whilst he was unarmed. Jaune had learned that from rumors and hearsay yesterday.

The sexism did us favors, I suppose. I would have been more than happy to let Jaune take care of the whole mess if he could. Instead he waited outside, armed and opposite the Don's own men who had pulled up in a truck to secure the establishment for their boss.

He had all of our weapons tucked under Qrow's chair in the bar we ourselves had taken up just the other day. They were ready to provide support but it would take something obvious to get their attention. No wires. Qrow hadn't been happy about that. But we were big girls, we were together, and we could look out for ourselves.

Had to, even.

The Don strolled out from the presidential suite. He was a large man with a tiny handlebar mustache and little teeth. Now when you're the sort of person who had small teeth and beady eyes to begin with it was important that you didn't have a little handlebar mustache or be this kind of overweight. It was like the Gods had dealt the Don a bad hand and Corneo had gone all in with it.

He'd greased his hair back in an ugly massive cowlick. His shirt was open wide to expose a harry chest and I thought Ruby was about to gag. Ugly cigar smoke accompanied Corneo as he'd excited the suite.

Even Yang's picturesque smile faltered for a second.

The tavern, for it's part, was as beautiful as a thing on the lower floors could be. It was mostly clean, not matching the slightly dinghy exterior or the dark grease of the backrooms we'd entered through.

"Hmm. Good, splendid choices this evening. Splendid choices indeed."

He paced slowly before us.

"Now which girl should I choose. This one maybe?" He stopped in front of Ruby. I could almost feel her shudder through where our aura's overlapped.

He stepped in front of Yang. "I do like a blonde but… damaged goods is damaged goods." I winced at that. Even from something like this Yang didn't deserve that. She was still healing. She kept a bright face, though, and gave the Don a dazzling smile.

She really did rock the outfit. She looked like a supermodel… except for the arm.

The rest of us would never mind such a thing, this creature evidently did.

He paced in front of me and I looked away. He tried to meet my eyes and I looked the opposite direction again.

"Ooh I've made up my mind!" He sounded giddy. "My choice for tonight is this beautiful girl." He was standing right before me. There could be no mistake and dread welled up in my stomach.

"Now wait just a moment…" I stuttered out. My shyness just seemed to confirm it for him.

"Oh I just love it when they play hard to get." His grin roared across his face. "The rest of you can go entertain my men downstairs!" He shouted the last bit and it was met with whoops and hollers from the first floor. They'd seen us come up, of course.

At least four of them, all armed.

"Now come with me, my pretty."

I shot a sideways glance but Yang just gave me a solemn but encouraging nod. I breathed out slowly and followed the Don into the presidential suite.

"Ahh finally alone." I shuddered in disgust. Suddenly Jaune's polite, almost afraid, advances during freshman year didn't seem so untoward. "Come give daddy some sugar."

I threw up in my mouth a little. I had no intention of giving him any of my sugar. Or anything else for that matter. Instead I held out a hand and my semblance flared to life over it.

"Come on, come give me a kiss."

Yang and the others would get the memo when he started screaming. I pinned him spread eagle to the wall with my semblance, a tiny glyph at the far end of each of his four appendages.

"Wha-whats the meaning of this?"

"Shut up. I'll be asking the questions."

"You're a huntress!"

I twisted his arms in their sockets and he screamed. I winced at the noise. The sound bothered me far more than the implications of what I was doing.

"Shut up or I'll do even worse to you."

I heard the sound of Yang's gun going off and Nora shouting outside. Ruby's adorable little grunts followed and some gunfire. My friends would have my back and together we'd get the situation under control.

"I want your scroll communication encryption key." I informed him. "You're going to give it to me or I'll get creative with my semblance."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll rip them off," I informed him with the sweetest voice I had given him so far.

"I can't give you that. I'll be ruined!"

"I'm going to ruin you one way or another. The choice is yours."

"Alright, alright. I'll talk." He was resigned as he hung suspended over the bed. "The private key is 'There once was a girl.' one cap and spaces like a sentence."

"And how do I know you're not lying? Give me a good reason or I'll chop it off."

I twisted his legs uncomfortably until one of his knees popped in its socket. He screamed again, louder this time.

"No, not that. Take my scroll," he sobbed. "The key is on there, I swear it! Please!"

It was good enough for me. I snatched it off the bedside table. There were also some drugs on the table in little lines of powder. The lines had been twisted and disturbed as I'd flung him back into the bed, however. I looked down at him in disgust. Hyper was a hell of a drug.

Yang's arm punched through the door behind me, she ripped through the door and grabbed the knob from the inside and yanked the door open. It wasn't even the robotic arm, either. She was just that strong, I was surprised she didn't rip the door off of it's hinges.

"You got him." She observed. "You alright?"

I exhaled a stuttering sigh but nodded. I just needed a long shower after this mess. I felt exposed and naked and filthy and exposed.

"I got the key and his scroll." I waved the sweaty device. The mere touch of it against my bare skin set my teeth on edge.

"His men inside are indisposed. The trap worked." Yang informed me.

The man moaned from the bed and I felt absolutely disgusting.

"Let's get out of here." I bemoaned, suddenly tired.

"Can't just yet. It's turning into a shoot out with the men outside. Some of the girls who actually work here are hurt. Jaune'll bust us out though. Ren and him already engaged them outside."

The gunfire must have clued him in to start fighting. Speaking of, the gunfire hadn't stopped. I suppose it was coming from outside. The boys had their actual weapons though. They'd be fine. I wanted out of this freaking outfit.

I heard short bursts of Stormflower and Jaune cry out as I descended the stairs again. Nora had both hands on the bleeding stomach of a young girl who had been shot in the crossfire. Blood welled from between her fingers as she tried to put pressure on the wound.

Another girl had been shot in the calf and Ruby was shushing her as she tried to apply a tourniquet. She was sobbing from the pain. Ruby, ever the empath, had tears in her own eyes as she worked.

A man leaned against a wall with his skull crushed and another lay beside a machine gun with a shotgun blast in his stomach. Blood leaked over the wooden floors from the corpses I could only guess Yang had left behind.

I peeked out of one of the windows with Yang beside me as Jaune and Ren tore into the Don's men. Some of them had aura, some did not. A flash of red aura here, and blue there. Jaune and Ren could hardly pick and choose and the violence was pure. Blood dripped from the broadsword and off of Ren's daggers as people out in the street screamed and made room for the fight.

Jaune had been right about keeping violence off of the street. I could only imagine the fallout as one of the Don's men opened up on Jaune with an assault rifle, military grade with hard light rounds. Jaune deflected the bullets off his sword and his thick aura and rushed him and cut the man in half beside one of the two Jeeps.

"Clear." Jaune's voice boomed as the last man fell.

A burp of bullets from Stormflower and Ren echoed him, voice much louder than normal. His eyes were wide at the bloodshed while Jaune just looked exhausted from my view out the window. One of the downed men reached out towards Jaune and Jaune kicked him in the head with a heavy boot. His head snapped back hard enough and fast enough that it might have broken.

I looked away.

Jaune entered the place, eyes wide and searching over us for injuries. He took note of the injured girls and downed men with a world weary sigh.

"You girls alright?"

"We're green." Yang replied. She looked and sounded shaky herself. Her bionic arm soaked in blood and a bit of brain.

"Load up those girls in the Jeeps. Let's get them to a hospital," he ordered.

"Jaune…" Ruby murmured, looking at the bloody edge of Crocea Mors.

Jaune bent down and picked the girl Ruby had been helping up and carried her outside without a backwards glance.

"What about the men outside and in here?" I asked. I followed him closely.

"Law enforcement is slow on the lower levels but not that slow. They'll get here for them." 'Or they won't' went unsaid. Jaune looked like he didn't particularly care if those men bled out in the street and I supposed there was nothing he could do about it anyways.

His glowing eyes looked as untouchable as antarctic mountains, and just as cold.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Ren looked worse than I felt when we finally made it back to the hideout. Suddenly I felt like I wasn't the one who's done the dirty work of the operation. His eyes were wide as he tried to relax and wipe down his blades.

I'd have to wait on my turn for the shower. Nora and Ruby had been covered in blood and despite how dirty I felt internally I felt I deserved to wait compared to that.

It was meditative, watching the slow practiced way he cleaned them but his hands were shaking slightly.

"It gets easier." Jaune promised. That was all he said. His own blade required the attention of a whole towel. The inner mechanisms were sticky with blood and Jaune worked the edge of the towel into them and sprayed the whole thing and his breastplate off with the hose outside.

"I-" Ren stuttered. "I don't like it. I'm going to be sick."

"Yeah." Jaune murmured. He hosed himself off too, water and blood making his clothes cling to his masculine form in the warm Mistrali breeze. "It's like that."

"How do you do it? It's nothing like fighting the Grimm."

"I don't know." Jaune breathed over the pour of water from the hose. He started to strip off the blood stained clothes and I looked away. My chest felt tight. The blood and carnage outside the Honey Bee Inn had been unlike anything I had ever seen.

I threw up in my mouth for the second time that day when I remember the dismembered and bullet ridden men.

They simply hadn't been prepared for our assault or Huntsman-class weapons. It was like fighting Atlesian Robots, something I'd done for training before Beacon. Only these weren't robots.

They were people.

Too dangerous for local law enforcement or able to skirt the edges but not more dangerous than a focused team of huntsmen. Jaune still shone with aura like he had during the fight and I struggled to look away, even though I should.

I stood up and left the boys to their tasks.

Yang's arm was soaking in the sink and she sat on a couch inside, bare stub set out to the side with a thousand yard stare. If Yang had been chosen then I would have had to be the one to kill those men downstairs at the Inn.

"Are you alright, Yang?"

She reached around with one arm and hugged me close. "I was so scared for you when you were chosen by the Don." She trailed off and I let her hold me. "Then...then I thought those guys had aura and I just…"

"I saw." I murmured. "Had you ever… like Jaune…?"

"No. I'd never killed anyone." Yang muttered back. "All the gangster's I've fought had aura or… or I got lucky. I'll be fine. Just worried about Ruby, you know? And Jaune he's got this dead look in his eyes."

I knew what she was talking about. Jaune had been so casually brutal. He'd greeted the violence like an old friend. Or at least a familiar acquaintance.

It was concerning. This had been the plan. It went off with relatively few hitches. We had the key. We had his scroll. We had everything we needed to get Qrow walking again.

Why didn't it feel like a victory?

"Ruby's strong. She'll just fret over the rest of us once she's out of the shower."

"But what about Jaune?" Yang pressed. "Ren looked bothered about it but you saw how Jaune took it. He took it like a champ. Except it was murder."

"I saw," I confessed. "He was used to it."

"You don't just get used to that kind of thing, do you?"

"I don't think we know Jaune's full story. He didn't seem to like it. He was just resigned to what was happening."

"He was cutting people into ribbons," Yang protested half-heartedly.

"And you crushed a person's skull."

"But-"

"What should he have done?"

"He should be as shocked by it as the rest of us."

"He's been shook up before." I found myself defending Jaune. Even that moment when he kicked the down man. "He did what he had to do. Just like the rest of us. Just like Ren."

"Ren looks battered."

"So does Jaune. Just a little deeper."

"I just don't know how he can feel so little while I'm here feeling so much." Yang looked fit to sob. "I'm so happy you're safe."

"I'm safe." I murmured comfortingly. My own thoughts choked up with affection for the older girl. My sister, by rite if not by blood. "Ruby's safe. We're all safe."

But for how much longer? We'd be in such situations again, hopefully with our weapons but Yang had to accept she couldn't keep everyone under her wing forever.

I heard footsteps behind me and found Ruby dressed in her PJs. The PJs were oddly more flattering on Ruby than the bee outfit had been. "Yang…" she greeted us, the sight of her crying sister drawing her attention. We were still in our outfits, even. "Shower's ready for you, Weiss."

I nodded and took my leave, giving the two sisters the room. I striped out of the bee clothes in the shower with a fresh set of my own relaxing clothes on the sink in the bathroom.

The shower water felt heavenly. I scrubbed out the aching knots in my shoulders and let the water rush over me. I hadn't realized I'd been so tense but I'd just felt so empty without Myrtenaster and in that skimpy outfit.

I moaned as I let my hands run over me. I felt no more naked now than I had before the Don. I knew that that wasn't what sex was supposed to be like. I could hardly imagine that Ruby and Jaune engaged in something like what the Don had had in mind for me.

Nothing had ever been so good as the mercy of the hot water. I heard the sound of Nora's own shower ending and then the piping starting up as the next person got in and got ready.

I let out little sighs as I scrubbed my long hair.

I let my focus wane and almost found the warm water washing me off to sleep standing, still.

I shut the water off and wrapped my hair in a towel as I dressed in my own comfort clothes.

We all deserved some little comfort after all this.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	31. The Worst is Over I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I chased Ruby's bottom lip with hunger and she rolled her fingers through my hair. She giggled against my lips as I sighed in pleasure at the touch of her small hands.

I pinned her down against my unkempt bed with a vigor that made her roll her pelvis up at me and I growled.

"You _rascal_." I broke off the kiss to look her in the eye but her grey gaze just seemed to say 'who, me?'

Yes you. If it wasn't you, then who?

I ran one frustrated hand under her body and along her back, pulling her close to me. I slid under her shirt and I bodily picked her up off the bed and held her against me as I devoured her lush, full lips with some savagery.

I touched the whole of her curved back with my arm and she heaved up into me with heavy breaths. Her skin just felt so fantastic against my own as I cradled the whole of her small form against my larger one. She let out another noise, one that made me feel like a man and she breathed out my name with a tiny mewl.

"Oh, Jaune..."

It left her pink lips like a prayer and I dove back upon them with my own.

It had been weeks since I'd held her so close. It had been weeks since we'd been able to share more than parting looks and careless touches. I could feel her want against my own in a steady rhythmic pulse which only sped up over time. She flushed as red like the tips of her hair as I chased her tongue around her mouth. Then she suddenly closed her lips and sucked on my tongue gently in a way that made my chest heave. It made me throb for her.

Our teeth met briefly and savory, softly clicking together as I deepened our kiss. She moaned, a low sound in her throat I wouldn't have thought the young woman capable of making. It only made me want to devour her flesh more. I kissed down her neck and over her jaw line until I arrived at the simple in her collar and sucked against her supple skin.

So great was my hunger as I knelt between her legs that I nearly left behind hickies and marked her smooth flesh with my possessiveness. I had to remember not to mark her as she grabbed my face in her arms and moaned again. Gods I would do so fucking much just to hear her moan like that. That was why I did what I did. This is what I fought for. It nearly made the weeks of passing touches worth the wait just to hear her cry out quietly and writhe against the sheets.

Our aura's merged and flared like touching candle flames and she hissed beneath me, clawing against my shirt, just searching for purchase. She rubbed against the massive scars the Scorpion had left along my chest and I moaned loudly, almost a deep grunt. Red mixed with gold and flickers of blue flame. Crimson petals drifted from the air around us as the heat of our moment intensified.

Her legs tried in vain to wrap around my waist but my frame was too wide to allow that. She gave a little noise of protest which was absolutely delicious as she failed to pull me even closer to her.

The door to the room burst open.

"Hey Jaune have you seen my- what the fuck!?"

I was hauled off of Ruby by pure main strength and was turned to face Yang. I saw her eyes flash red from violet. I met the heated glare with pure stupid apathy as I was brutishly shoved against a wall hard enough that my head cracked against it.

"Have you seen," she hissed, "my sister."

"Yeah." I muttered duly. "She's around." My head cracked against the wall again painlessly. I felt slow, big, and dumb.

"Yang what the hell?!" Ruby shouted from where she sat up on the bed. Her fingers still deep in the sheets as she propped herself up.

"You were having sex!"

"I was super well aware!" Ruby huffed and blew her messy hair out from in front of her eyes. "Will you let him go, please?" Yang released me and I stepped back from the tan wall and away from one of the green plants which lined our Mistrali rental.

"Well. Explain, asshole." Yang demanded her hair burning in orange and yellow. Her enormous mane was inflamed from the heat of her anger.

"Yang I like him," Ruby spouted from behind her sister. "I should have told you, Jaune was helping me keep it a secret."

I nodded dumbly, still half cocked. Blood was flowing from other places back to my brain. I wasn't reacting swiftly to the situation and I wasn't sure there was much I could have said.

"Really? This dumb motherfucker?" Yang turned her gaze around at Ruby.

"Yang!" Ruby sat up straighter on the bed and dropped the sheets she'd still held clutched in those tiny hands. "I. Like. Him. And why not? He makes me feel safe. He makes me feel good. I like him. He always has my back and I love how much I trust him."

Yang staggered, looking at Ruby in disbelief. "How long?"

"A little before we picked up Qrow. Maybe a month." Ruby 'pffted' upwards blowing her hair out of her face again.

"This whole time," Yang whipped back towards me. "This whole time you've been taking advantage of my sister."

"I keep telling you it isn't like that!" Ruby protested.

"Then why sneak around about it?!"

Ruby geastured emphatically. "This! This is why, Yang." She turned her head sideways slightly. "I was trying to find the right time to tell you."

"And what? He was all too happy to go along with it?"

"Yes! He does whatever I ask him to do, he's like a big puppy. He's harmless."

"I just saw him murder a bunch of people. Calmly."

"We haven't had the chance to talk recently…" Ruby confessed, sounding meek for the first time. "But that's the job, Yang. Sometimes bad guys die. Roman Torchwhick died. You killed people too. That's the job sometimes. I knew that. You knew that."

"Yeah but I was busted up about it was the difference."

"Jaune was super messed up the first time he killed someone. You weren't there for it. You were back at Dad's. And Jaune had my back. When Tyrion came for me, to kidnap me and take me to Salem, Jaune was willing to die for me! He almost did die for me! How much more ideal and sweet a guy could I have found and you're still not happy with it? What was I supposed to do? No one was going to be good enough for me in your mind."

Yang's hair deflated. Her eyes flicked back to violet as something like shame took her over. If I was a betting man it wasn't over her outburst of anger, but rather over the fact she'd _flinched. _

"Jaune," I looked up at Ruby still feeling dazed. "Would you give us the room? Please?"

I nodded along. "Sure. Of course." I walked past the crouching tiger I felt Yang represented within the room and shut the door behind me. I leaned back against it and wiped my hands across my eyes and sighed out loud.

"You got caught." It was Weiss. I couldn't muster up the heat of a glare. I felt too tired, bone deep tired. I met her icy blue eyes, her hair was down around her shoulders and not in its usual ponytail.

"Yeah. We 'got caught.'" I let out. I was leaning deeply against the door such that our eyes were level.

She flushed a little scarlet. "Just kissing or something more."

"A little of column A and a little of column B."

"Well you're still…" she trailed off pointing downwards. She was only looking out of the corner of her eye with her head turned away, as if to give me a sense of modesty.

I was still half cocked, thank you Weiss. Super appreciative.

It wasn't her fault, though.

I exhaled, hard, and took a few deep breaths. I tried to slow my heart rate back down and get my anatomy under control.

"Yeah well you know." I managed. "It'll go away."

"Is that how it works?"

"Yeah. That's how it works." I spouted stiffly.

"You could have locked the door."

"The doors don't have locks." I said dry as ice. "We figured somebody would knock first."

"And that would have helped?"

"Maybe? Probably? I don't have a plan for everything!"

She snorted at me in a quiet 'ugly' laugh. Yuck it up, Weiss.

I leaned against the door and tried to forget Ruby's pulse between her legs. It was pretty difficult. I was intentionally avoiding the word 'hard' but 'twas also that.

"Seems to me this whole situation could have been avoided if you'd just talked to Yang."

"Wasn't my decision. I'm just the dumb boyfriend. Dumb boyfriends follow their smart girlfriends' orders. Especially where family is concerned."

"What about your family?"

"They'd be amazed I got this far."

"With a girl?"

"Just in general." I crossed my arms over my chest.

Weiss gave me a pleasant smile at that, the sort I would have killed for freshman year. It was warm around the edges, yet firm in the center. Blue eyes glowing softly in the morning light of Mistral. The deep dusk reds couldn't seem to touch Weiss's eyes.

"Coffee?" She asked. "Or were you going to avail yourself of a cold shower."

"Ha. Ha." I pronounced my 'ha's. "I think I'm good on that shower." I felt confident enough to stand up straight and I followed her down stairs for some of the brown beverage.

Weiss evidently took her's dark. I watched her quietly make it, arms folded in the kitchen over my blue cotton shirt. She handed a cup to me and I guess she knew I was a pussy because she offered me cream and sugar. I availed myself of some mixing the white with the brown. Just a little though. I wasn't Ruby. I heaved yet another sigh.

"So now the only one who doesn't know if Qrow." She blew over her drink.

"And Oscar, I guess." I cheered her when she offered her mug in my direction."Or Ozpin or whatever they are."

I took a sip and winced at the temperature.

"Careful, it is hot."

"I just about got that memo, thanks. One more just to make it sink in." I took another sip and winced. "Yep, still hot."

"Well don't do it again! You'll just hurt yourself."

I shrugged. "Pretty sure Yang would be on board with the concept of me suffering."

"Well let's not give her what she wants. I'll take it from you, you know. You have to be patient."

I blew over the top of the liquid distinctly impatiently.

"You're worse than Ruby sometimes." She was smiling, though.

"Yeah." I agreed. "How are you holding up after yesterday. Couldn't have been easy on the inside."

"Not sure if you heard or not but the Don picked me to be his escort for the night. He had some lines of hyper laid out on his bedside table, even. For the evening, I suppose. A man of indulgence."

"I hadn't." I prompted.

"I held him down with my semblance and made him talk. On the whole, I'd say I had the easiest job. Not like you boys outside."

"It got messy, I'm just glad none of you got hurt."

"How are you holding up with it?"

"Killing people, you mean?"

She nodded, leaning her head on one hand as she looked up at me from the table she'd taken a seat at.

"I'm alright at it. I think I might even be good at it. Killing people. It does get easier."

"How many?"

"I used to know, used to have a number. Went from one, to two, then... But now I've lost count. A bunch. A whole bunch of people."

"I'm sorry, Jaune."

"Sometimes it be like that. It's what we signed up for."

"I haven't killed anyone, not yet. I probably will at some point, though. Seems inevitable, doesn't it?"

"Some poor sap without aura and then, bam." I nodded. "Even with aura you can't exactly tell how full they are sometimes so you just go right through."

"Gods."

"That's how my first one went. This bandit. I had my semblance and I just spent it and cut him."

"You're unbelievably strong with your semblance active." Weiss nodded along like she could see it. "The point of Myrtenaster will probably be like that, especially if I have some speed behind me."

"Exactly." I took a sip, the coffee had finally cooled down enough that I could drink some. I almost found myself pounding the drink.

"Well, aren't we chipper?" She sighed.

"Just pragmatic. You see how Ren's holding up?"

"Nora got him out of the place early. She called it a 'not-date' and left. I think she killed somebody too. Just crushed their rib cage."

"Lords above." I sighed. "Just you, Ruby, and Oscar, now. I suppose, depending on how you wanna cut that Ozpin thing."

She took a long drink of coffee at that, deep in thought and staring out a window onto the little courtyard we trained in.

"So the only thing left to do is get Qrow back up and walking. Job's done."

"Aren't we taking some ganglords word on that."

"Qrow thinks she'll honor it."

"She? Well isn't that progressive."

"I figure Malachite isn't so bad. She seemed to run things clean, or as clean as such things can be run, and Qrow has had past dealings with them."

"You've met some of them?"

"This pair of twins. Evidently they're Malachite's daughters. One in white and one in red. Huntresses, the both of them."

"One on white and one in red huh?" Yang was standing by the banister. "Well I think I know where I heard that name before now."

"We cool?" I asked.

"Yeah. We're cool. Sorry for blowing off on you."

"S'no biggie."

"Kinda. You were there for my sister when she needed you. Needed somebody and I… I wasn't."

"No one blames you for that." I said. "You were hurt."

"So were you, what with Pyrrha and all."

"S'no biggie. It affects us all differently. My motivations to keep going weren't all so pure."

"Join us Yang." Weiss encouraged. "Coffee?"

"Thanks." She strode into the room. Weiss stood up to pour Yang a mug. "Nora and Ren?"

"Out." Weiss and I said together.

"Ruby?" Weiss asked.

Yang snorted and I heard some plumbing going. "Said she was going to take a cold shower. Thanks," She said, accepting the coffee from Weiss.

"We were discussing yesterday," I said. "What horrific thing happened to you?"

Yang snorted again.

"I uh I killed two people."

"How'd that go?" I asked.

"Awful. After Weiss got chosen we started hearing screaming from the 'presidential suite.'" Yang quoted. "Not even the kind you could maybe think was the dirty. That sorta kicked things off. I just reached out and killed a guy. Just crushed his head. I thought he'd have aura."

"And even if he did…" Weiss trailed.

"Right." Yang nodded. "I shot another guy with my gauntlet and Ruby and Nora took care of the other guys. Then I ripped my way through the locked presidential suite door. Weiss already had things under control by then but…" She trailed off. "Well then we came down the stairs and saw the mess you and Ren had to deal with. Saw you kick that guy."

I nodded. I still remembered the way his head had felt under my boot.

"And the rest…" She gave shuddering breath and lifted the coffee to her lips. "The rest is history."

"Miserable," Weiss said, shaking her head.

"Some guns went off. You saw the girls who got shot." Yang said. "Just waitresses or whatever."

I nodded.

"And that was my day. How was yours?" Yang asked, sipping coffee.

"Wasn't quite the worst day of my life." I said. "But it's up there. It does get easier."

"Jaune, and I mean this with all politeness, I really really don't want to hear that," Yang said. "It should be hard. It deserves to be hard. It's well… you know."

I nodded like I got it, which I did.

I heard the plumbing shut off and Ruby exiting one of the bathrooms. I just listened.

"So you and my lil' sis." Yang broached. "How'd that happen?"

"She kept saving my life."

Yang let out a low whistle. "Way she told it, it was the opposite."

"You know how modest Ruby is."

She nodded. "You knew about this kerfuffle, Weiss?"

Weiss nodded. "Ruby told me. She- well - she was happy to share it with somebody."

I could have flushed at that.

"And that somebody couldn't have been me." Yang agreed sullenly, Weiss and I shared a look but Yang seemed mostly disappointed in herself. "That day you were also covered in blood. You'd just killed somebody then, too."

Three. Killed three. I even knew two of their names. I just nodded. "Some dumbasses without aura. Needed some information and he and his friend tried to fight me. Over nothing was the worst part. He died for nothing. I mean I went and unlocked his aura but he was already nearly cut in half so I'm not sure if he lived or died. I'm counting it as a death, though."

"You keeping count?" Yang asked.

"Was. Stopped yesterday." I finished off my coffee.

"He says he lost count." Weiss stepped in and refilled my mug. Bless her. She said it like it was the worst thing that could happen to a person and to be fair it really sucked.

"Good gods." Yang sighed. "That'll happen to me too. One day I'll just be like 'was it ten or twelve. I can't remember.'"

"The fight was fast and had a lot of bodies yesterday. You might get luck. Or unlucky. Whichever."

"Which is worse not knowing or knowing?" Yang laughed.

"Not knowing," I answered.

"You weren't supposed to answer that fast, Jaune." Weiss handed me my mug back.

"Ask me no questions…"

Ruby popped her head down. "Oh, you're…?"

"We 'aight." Yang answered.

"It's fine."

"I have coffee here just for you Ruby." Weiss brushed some spilled coffee grounds into her hand and into the sink. Ruby came jostling down to us and accepted the cup.

Ruby came over and gave me a peck on the cheek. Yang rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Just get it out and done with now."

"Is that how you think it works?" Ruby asked.

"Oh just because you have a boyfriend now doesn't make you all knowledgeable."

"It might." Ruby responded but there was a quiver of laughter to her voice.

"Please share what it's like with us humble mortals," Weiss said. Ruby fell back and I caught her. I put an arm around her waist and held her close to me.

She leaned her head back against my chest and sighed. "It's nice. It's nice not having to hide it, either."

"Ugh." Yang rolled her eyes but she was smiling. I wasn't sure what they had talked about up there but something must have gotten through to Yang.

"Are Ren and Nora dating yet?" Weiss asked.

"Kinda. More than before but less than you'd think," I answered.

"Figures," Yang said.

"Hey kid," Qrow wheeled up. "What's uh what's going on here?" He was looking at Ruby in my arms, looking relaxed.

"Jaune and Ruby are a thing." Yang answered. "Sorry you're the last to know."

"I could have guessed," he grunted. "Come on kid. Meeting with the Malachites."

"So just me then. Okay." Yang muttered.

"Will you be okay alone?" Ruby asked me.

I slammed back my coffee and nodded. I would be just fine, I think.

"I'm coming too." Ruby decided. No one argued with her.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	32. The Worst is Over II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"So how'd you know about me and Jaune?" Ruby asked as I wheeled Qrow down one of the rugged streets. They weren't exactly built with wheelchairs in mind but I muddled through.

"The way he looked at you. The way he wanted to talk to you after he killed that guy. Plus when you held up your bee clothes so he could get a look at you."

"I suppose that might give it away."

"He wasn't subtle."

"Hey I… tried."

"If you hurt her though…" he trailed off. It wasn't so intimidating from the chair. I laughed which made him frown.

"If I hurt her she's more than capable of taking it out of my hide. Plus I'm sure Yang will give me a similar threat. You'll have some competition."

Ruby stammered slightly. "I'm sure Yang will behave."

We both looked at her. Disbelief on both our faces.

"Okay, you don't have to bust me about it," Ruby let out.

"It's fine. Yang'll make her threat because she's gotta, it's an older sibling thing, and life will go on," I said. "Won't stop me from loving you."

Heat crept up her neck at that. Silver eyes imploring me.

"It's always the fuckin' blondes." Qrow muttered, seeing Ruby's reaction. "Always. We're here. You can stop staring at each other."

I wasn't sure that I could. I wanted to stand there and look into Ruby's eyes. Luckily, or unluckily as the case may have it, she looked away first and eyed up the Malachites' bar.

"So this is it?"

I nodded. "Come on." I pushed Qrow inside. It was pretty similar to the last two times I'd been inside for all that it was still morning. People were doing drugs in plain sight, and Malachite sat with two different bodyguards though this time she was shuffling a deck of cards and playing with herself. Was that her weapon? I'd heard of stranger huntress weapons but not by much and a little Titania went a long way.

"So, you completed our favors?" She asked from the long side of her table.

I held out the Don's scroll and passed it to her. "The encryption key is 'There once was a girl.'" It was also written on a sticky note attached to the device in Weiss's handsome script.

"You also snagged his scroll? Well done." She purred. "I'll honor my end of the arrangement. I already have the prosthetics at my personal surgeon's office. I'll get you his address. Then we'll see about getting Qrow back into fighting shape."

"How long will he be under for?" Ruby asked.

"I'm not the surgeon, deary," Malachite said. "He'll also probably want to stop that." She gestured to where Qrow had his flask of liquor in his hands. Qrow scowled and put the flask back in his pocket. "There's a good boy. Anesthesia can have all kinds of bad reactions as it is."

She snapped her fingers and a legal pad appeared. She picked up a pen and scrawled out an address. "A pleasure doing business with you all." She handed it over to me.

I just grunted in reply and glanced at the address. I opened my scroll and looked up the location through the maps feature. It was on the middle floors and from the images that came up it looked like a nice place. It had a pebble garden out front and some tall and immaculately trimmed trees in the photos. It looked like a small private hospital which also served as a front for the Malachites' operations. Any time they needed somebody cut into, I imagine they took them here. It was probably also a legitimate business. Better to hide that way.

"Until next time," Malachite dismissed us from her service and we walked out the way we came in.

"Well that wasn't so bad." Ruby said. "She seemed alright, although maybe Torchwick would have seemed that way too. If we'd met under different circumstances."

"How did you meet Torchwick?" I asked. I hadn't heard the story.

She explained how they'd tried to rob her in a small dust shop in Vale. She went on about how Torchwick had tried to blow her up with a crystal when she pursued him but she was saved by Goodwitch.

"You know how to use dust, though, don't you Jaune?"

"Just to blow stuff up. Not like Weiss or Ms. Goodwitch with their magic. Or even like you with your bullets."

"But you know how to make explosives."

"I do. It isn't as hard as it sounds. Even a caveman like me can do it. You just need to complete a circuit through the stuff and it goes off. Or throw it hard enough. Either does fine."

She gave a soft hum in thought at that.

"Please tell me this isn't how the two of you flirt." Qrow muttered. I could tell that his inability to drink was getting on his nerves.

I wondered how much he'd already had to drink. It was only eleven in the morning. He'd probably be fine, though. Hunters were fairly resilient.

I laughed. "It's not. We're just sparring your old man sensibilities by not."

"I'm going to be out of this chair in a bit and you're going to regret every one of those side comments."

"Sure," I drew out the word. "What a way to thank me."

"I mean it. I'm going to hit you and you're going to deserve it."

"Don't you dare," Ruby said. "Play nice, both of you."

I shrugged. Easy enough for me. Qrow grumbled down in the chair as I pushed him all the way to the hospital.

"How much alcohol have you had today uncle Qrow?" Ruby asked. Some concern in her voice. I was mostly staring at her pink lips.

_Later. _

"Only a little. It'll be fine. I swear."

"Maybe we should wait…"

"I've waited long enough to get up out of this damn thing."

"We're here." We stood in front of the medical building. It was white leading up to nicely colored dark bricks with several gardens and terraces. It looked pretty enough from the outside.

The door opened automatically as I pushed Qrow forward up to the receptionist. "Name and date of birth?"

I let Qrow answer her. There were also some forms to fill out before the operation. I let Qrow take care of those and he sighed from the chair. Of all the things to get between him and walking again I think he hated bureaucracy the most.

Then we sat in the waiting room until a nurse came to wheel Qrow away.

"Wait uh- we sorta want to watch. To make sure everything goes smoothly." She recovered. She still didn't trust the Malachites.

The orderly nodded. "Yes the Doctor Seward mentioned you might be the sorts of patients who require the one way mirror. You'll be able to watch the surgery from there. Please follow me."

We did. "Right through here please." We entered a small room with chairs like those out in the waiting room all facing a pane of dark glass. On the other side there was an operating room and table. Surgical lights and lines of sanitized chrome medical equipment sat on still more chrome tables.

I left my sword at the door. I couldn't sit down with it on my back. Ruby and I took a seat and she took my hand in hers which I squeezed.

"You know, now we can do all the flirting we want."

"Butt." She called me out but she smiled a little through her worry so it was worth it. I kissed her cheek and brushed her hair back over her ear. She leaned against me and rested her head on my chest. From there she anxiously traced little circles over me.

We watched them bring Qrow into the room wearing only a gown. Two orderlies lifted him onto the operating table and started wiping his legs down with sanitizing wipes and setting up an IV drip. I watched him relax his red aura and let a needle enter his arm at the vein in his elbow.

He gave us a wave through the mirror but it was clear he couldn't see us. He leaned back and tried to relax and Ruby pursed her lips nervously.

"Hey. He'll be fine. We made it this far. How are you after yesterday."

"There was so much blood," she whispered. "You had to kill again. You were right when you said that you would have to. That couldn't have been easy for you. And those poor girls who got shot… the one who got hit in the stomach probably died."

"Maybe, yeah." I agreed loosley. There was a chance she had survived.

"Was it worth it?"

"Qrow will go on to save lives after today. Innocent lives from the agents of Salem. That's about as good as you can ask for."

"Was it worth it though. All the bloodshed."

"I don't have an answer. I figured you would tell me."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. You've been more than my moral compass, Rubes. I've done some stuff I'm not proud of."

"Like killing all those people."

"Yeah. Weiss and I talked about it this morning, it's just the two of you who haven't done it at this point."

"And you've done it the most."

"Yeah," I said. It wasn't exactly a bragging point for me. I was a murderer.

We watched the surgeon come in. A male nurse put the surgeon's gloves on for him, he was already wearing a mask and his own robes. Then they wheeled in a set of dark grey legs, cut off at the knees. They looked sleek but they'd have to be inserted where Qrow was injured at the thigh.

"I killed Roman Torchwick." Ruby whispered. She told me about the fight on top of the battleship and how a Gryphon came swooping down and ate him.

We watched as they put him under and set up a tent around his legs. Scalpels came away from this flesh colored red with blood and I felt Ruby tense beside me.

"Rubes…"

"I as good as killed him," her voice was small.

I wasn't going to fight her on it. If she said she killed him then in her mind she did. Besides, if we counted Vernal as using the Grimm as a weapon then didn't what Ruby did count? Maybe. Ruby had it sorted out straighter than I did. So I just put one arm around her.

We watched the surgery and let our thoughts be morbid.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was the one Qrow selected for his first sword fight. He was up and walking on those long legs and wanted to give them a test drive. I could hardly blame him. When my weapon changed I trained constantly and his legs were different now.

He might have to change his whole fighting style. That meant decades.

He was wobbly and I knocked him off balance with a grunt. He managed to block but he was still not used to the new legs. His sword arms were still fast and they made his weapon a blur as he descended onto me.

I parried and riposted with the broadsword fast enough that he had to back off. His balance was straight bad. I capitalized on it with a normal Cross-Slash. It held him in place then flung him back.

Weiss and Ruby watched from the sidelines with Oscar. They were quiet as they watched the elder huntsman fall over and over again. He stood up and shook at the thigh, the new legs were strong, it was where they were grafted on that was weak.

They'd been attached to the femur, longest, strongest bone in the body. The new legs were long with narrow knees. He tried to kick me with them but I blocked by twisting my own leg to the side.

"Ooh." Oscar moaned with empathetic pain at the sound of bone on metal when our shins connected.

I bullied the older huntsman with my shoulder. He stumbled back, arms cartwheeling as he frantically tried to regain his balance. I didn't take any pleasure in it, even as my semblance activated from the amount of damage I had dealt.

I rolled my sword and waited for Qrow to come back at me and he did with a tired sigh.

He swept his sword low and I hovered straight over it. He cursed and was forced to back up when I struck at his face. He ducked and our swords clashed with sparks when they met in the middle height. The angle was awkward for both of us and I retreated as his weapon's form shifted partially into a scythe.

He swept it at me and I blocked and brought my sword down on him in a single massive overhead strike. I let out a cry as I did and he brought up his weapon to block. He bent at the legs from the strike. Straying more at the hips than at the knees.

He growled in absolute frustration when I spent the Limit in a thrust that knocked him halfway across the courtyard in a smooth blue sweep. The motion carried us both and I slammed him back into the ground.

He lay on the ground with his dark red aura flickering. He just lay there and breathed hard and I had to remember he'd done basically no exercise for almost a month. At his age that shit was hard, even as a huntsman.

"Motherfucker," he exhaled.

"I can swap in for Jaune if you want, uncle Qrow?" Ruby called from the side.

"You'd take it too easy on me!" Qrow got to his feet. "The kid fucking gets it. Don't you?"

"You'll die." I murmured. "It's bad."

"I used to be a little shorter, I think." Qrow leaned on the staff of his scythe. "Not sure. Can't quite remember."

I winced for him. It sounded rough. Qrow had been the trooper. He wasn't complaining, just resigned to the hard work. Sure, he'd gotten frustrated in the chair but who wouldn't? Seriously, name a single person. His surgery had only been days ago and he was still frail.

It left me in the precarious position as still one of the best fighters in the group. perhaps even the best swords-person. He was still healing. The surgery was as deep as any wound I had received, including my brushes with death against Tyrion. Even a huntsman's healing factor could only do so much.

Still the deep grafts had the advantage of preserving his transformation. I'd seen his transformation work with little metal bird's feet. His clothes transformed with him too so it wasn't too much of a surprise, I suppose.

However Ozpin's magic worked the bone deep fixtures seemed to be enough.

"Come on. Let's get some water." I swept inside and picked up two glasses and filled them up. When I came back outside and handed Qrow the glass of water, Oscar and Weiss were sparring in comparative slow motion. She fenced at him with shallow thrusts and he parried with wild swings of the staff. He wasn't blocking with narrow turns of the wrist as was appropriate against Weiss's style. She wasn't riddling him with more stabs than were necessary to teach. Just the occasional throbbing reminder to keep his guard tight.

I watched her dance about him with elegance and stood beside Ruby.

"He's getting better," Ruby said. "You have credit for that."

I grunted. "Only if you have responsibility for me."

"I thought the guy was supposed to take responsibility, Jaune."

I laughed. "Responsibility for what, I wonder?"

"I'll show you later…" She murmured. She gave me a chaste kiss to let the message sink in. The absolute little minx. My face flushed red with all kinds of thoughts. "Thank you for looking after my uncle. I don't know if he's right to push himself so hard but I suppose you know a thing or two about hard work."

"Of course. I'd do anything to you-for you. I meant for you."

It was her turn to blush and stammer. "Y-yeah well thanks regardless. For both."

"You two are killing me," Qrow bemoaned. "That's my little niece."

"Not so little anymore." I looked her up and down and pointedly licked my lips. She watched my tongue and I felt a little satisfied as she exhaled, making a little shuddering noise. She wanted me to really kiss her. I could tell by the look in her eyes and the curvy wolfish smile.

She leaned back slightly showing off her chest to me.

I knew she was thinking of when we got interrupted a few days before. We hadn't had the chance to pick up where we left off and I suppose I wasn't the only one who wanted release.

She'd have to keep waiting, though. She'd started this.

"Did I miss anything." Yang came out. Ren and Nora were behind her.

"Just these two flirting," Qrow breathed, leaning down the wall until he was sitting.

"Score." Nora high-fived Ruby. "You go girl. Get some."

"Anybody up for a match with me?" Yang asked.

"I'll go," Ren agreed.

They stepped out, distinctly separate from where Weiss and Oscar fought, and started fighting. They fought in close range and Ren was using actual bullets to pepper Yang. Then when they got closer Yang's shotguns had the advantage. They alternated again at the length of Ren's blades but it was a short trip from that range to Yang's gauntlets.

He didn't have the long range Crocea Mors offered me to keep her at bay and had to actually engage her fairly close.

It was a bad matchup for him, a bit like he or Ruby were for me but that made it good practice in being smart rather than being good.

It was always possible for a huntsman to run into a bad matchup and die, even if they were good. And right now I was one of the best we had. That was a grin thought. Me.

Maybe I should take it in stride and be flattered by my growth, instead I was worried. If we got into a fight I was going to have to put part of the group on my back and carry it.

I watched Oscar with the cane that seemed a touch too long for him. Maybe that was hypocritical considering the length of my own weapon.

"Roll the wrists Oscar! It's in the wrists!" I shouted when he got stabbed again. Weiss put him on his ass as gently as she could. It was a sort of good practice for her. In control rather than speed or power. Plus she was constantly trying to trick him and had put herself in a corner.

It was good practice all around. I just felt unprepared anyways.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	33. Black Materia I

**Jaune's life goes bad in this one. Not an April Fool's joke.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Things aren't looking good, Oz." I overheard Qrow from the kitchen beside Ruby.

"Ever the optimist. Even with the _strides_ in progress we've made with you recently." Ozpin was in control so I suppose it was he who I heard take a sip of coffee rather than Oscar. "While I would not say our current predicament is ideal I think we can both agree the situation could be much worse. Humanity is a resilient force."

"Oz. Pro-huntsmen don't just bite it like that all at once. Salem's powerful and it seems like her reach is growing by the day. What does that say about humanity." I shuddered. Ruby set her arm on the small of my back and I gave her a firm nod. She sighed and turned around and paced away from me. I hated to see her leave but I loved to watch her go.

"That there are indeed a misguided few who have filled their hearts with malice. It doesn't take a great number of people to cause harm but I believe there are far more people in this world willing to prevent it."

Ruby paced over to join her uncle and Ozpin for their discussion. I loomed in the doorway, against the garden glass. "Um excuse me?" She was still a tad shy where her own leadership was concerned when things weren't in the heat of battle.

"Ah Ms. Rose and Mr Arc, join us." I snorted and stayed standing. Ruby took the red love seat next to her uncle. "We were just about to gather everyone to discuss our next steps."

"Oh, uh, great."

"Something on your mind kido?"

"Well if it's okay to ask…"

"Of course," Qrow encouraged.

"Well we've been talking about the relics, Jaune and I that is, and if they have the fall maiden…"

"Cinder," Ozpin clarified.

"Doesn't that mean that they already have the Beacon relic?"

"Very astute Ms. Rose. I was wondering who would be the first to ask. It's true that the Haven relic, the relic of knowledge, is very much at risk, and for now that should remain our primary objective. Let's just say I made finding the relic at Beacon a bit more challenging than at the other schools."

"Ah, that's good to hear."

"It is. But let's not forget the challenges that still lie before us."

"Oh well I did have one more question."

"No my cane is not a relic."

"I have no more questions."

They shared a polite laugh and I snorted again at my girlfriend's antics from my spot in the corner. Arms folded I still eyed Ozpin warily.

"Yes while this cane is indeed very precious to me it is only that, precious to me. And while it still has a few tricks up its sleeve, I can firmly say being a relic is not one of them."

"Now why don't you run and get the other students."

Ruby gave me an indecipherable glance as she walked past me to gather our friends.

"Now something we can help you with, Mr Arc."

"You let me into your school." It wasn't a question. "I have to know why. Why you took that risk over other applicants. I can't trust you otherwise."

"Yes. You did stand out to me at Beacon. Glynda, too. Your records indicated someone with shall we say more skill than you displayed."

"That charade should have lasted all of five minutes into initiation. I didn't even have aura."

"I took a calculated risk."

"You thought I was Salem's. My records didn't fool you."

They shared a glance. "Now is this the source of your hostility towards me. I thought it had its origin in my selection of Pyrrha as the new fall maiden."

"That too. Her blood is on your hands." I looked to where I wore Pyrrha's banner on my bicep. "How many others have you gotten killed that I don't know about? How many people have you had die? How old are you really? And why did you let me get past you?"

"Very well, if you'll allow me to tackle the questions in order?" He seemed to be actually waiting so I nodded. "Many. Too many to count for the first two. I suspect you know something about that. It has escaped me." I shuddered again and nodded. The exact number of people I have killed has run from me, after all. "I am very old. I predate modern Remnant by a few thousand years. And yes I thought you were an agent of Salem's. I'm glad to see that you aren't given the alarming competence you've shown me these last few weeks. I took a gamble and I'm happy to see it paid off."

"So you didn't know what I would become? This… this thing?"

"I saw potential in you, if that's what you're asking. I was hardly the only one. You were willing to put in the work to catch up to your peers. And you're hardly a monster, Mr. Arc." He gave a little laugh.

"I could have been one of Salem's agents and you still let me in. I could have killed someone. I could have been anything. You made the wrong choice."

"Even with the benefit of hindsight?"

"I could have been anything. You took too serious a risk where my friends are concerned. I think you have a bad habit of playing fast and loose with other people's lives, given that immortal perspective and all."

"Perhaps I did." He confessed, maybe conceding the point. "What would you have me do?"

"Be more careful. We're counting on you."

"You don't seem pleased by it."

"I don't have any other choice."

Qrow's scroll buzzed. He'd been watching our exchange with a sort of jealous attention. I had the feeling I'd asked questions he himself wanted answers to, like I had said things he wanted to be said. He looked at the device.

"It's Leo, hang on." He opened the communication. "Yeah? Okay. Yeah, we'll be there."

"And?" I pressed.

"He says he had a break-through with the council. Said he might just be able to put that raiding party together and that we should join him tomorrow evening to talk about it."

"Perhaps time was all Leo really needed." Ozpin sounded like he didn't believe it.

"But you doubt it," I said.

"I do. Leonardo disobeyed direct commands I had given him. You yourself are suspicious of him, rightfully so. As am I, as you were suspicious of me."

"Are," I corrected. "I am suspicious of you."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We marched in Leonardo's empty stronghold, Qrow in front and legs that were only getting stronger and Oscar in the back. We rolled up on Haven in force and fully expecting things to go sideways. I hadn't allowed my friends to go in thinking anything but. Anything else would only get somebody killed.

Not this time. Not my friends. Never again.

We pushed our way in through a set of double doors into a large atrium. It was huge and in Mistrali style. It had plants and art lining the walls all of which ran up to a set of double stairs around a single central statue.

"Why hello." Lionheart greeted from the top of the stairs. He wasn't waiting for us in his office like last time. Alarm bells went off in my head. My instincts screamed at me. Ruby walked beside me and her careful patience held me in check. Her own instincts had always been more on point than mine where non-Grimm were concerned. "Thank you for coming. There seems to be more of you than last time."

"Yeah well you know what they say, the more the merrier," Qrow inclined his head. "So what's going on with the council."

Lionheart appeared to be armed, for all that he was alone in a vast empty room. I suppose we were too.

A portal, same black and red swirling mass that I'd seen Yang and Weiss emerge from, opened beside Leonardo. Out started to step people. People I recognized.

"Raven…" Qrow murmured. "Jaune and Oz were right. It's a set up."

I witnessed the enemy line up. I started with the Scorpion, his eyes and mine met and he licked his lips. His gaze went past to Ruby and he glared, mechanical tail writhing in the air behind him. He looked fairly pissed. No doubt he wanted revenge for the missing appendage.

I went down until I stopped at a huntress with tattoos and claw-like weapons.

"You!" She recognized, looking at me. "You're that huntsman." She was the bandit from GaiLong.

"Jaune?" Ruby asked from beside me, not recognizing the blue eyed girl.

"You're Vernal." I cleared the air, pieces fitting in my mind. "You're the spring maiden."

"You and I have unfinished business," she said, glowering. She'd have to get in line. I stared beyond her at Cinder. The two groups of hunters stood, sizing each other up in the middle of the atrium. Then out came Cinder's accomplices. Emerald and Mercury.

Raven herself never came through the portal. Instead it collapsed and Vernal's eyes flared with maiden power.

It seemed I indeed had unfinished business with two of the four maiden's if you counted Cinder.

"Steady Jaune," Ruby murmured. Easier said than done. I wanted to activate my semblance and fling myself at Cinder. But she had two lackyes beside her. They'd get in the way. If I wanted to do this right I'd need to be careful. If I wanted Cinder to die I had to play things straight.

Anything else and it would be my friends who suffered.

"You killed Pyrrha. I'm going to take you apart for that."

"Who?" Cinder asked. "Oh the would-be maiden. You can hardly expect me to remember everyone but she does stand out to me."

I wanted rush her. I wanted to charge my semblance and backflip up there and take her the fuck apart. Ruby reached out and grabbed me by my hand and my heart rate slowed down. I felt our aura's overlapped and the tension I felt in my heart eased slightly.

I remembered the words she gave me at the top of the Gold Saucer carnival ride. If I wanted to have that, if I wanted to be hers, I had to wait. I had to approach it like Yang had mentioned to me, slow and careful. I'd have my chance at Cinder's throat.

I would.

I heard a noise from behind me, the great double doors on the atrium closed as an enormous man shut them. "The Whitefang are setting up the charges. No one's getting in, an' no one's getting out."

"Leo I have to say I'm enormously disappointed in you." Oscar or maybe Ozpin said.

"That boy is Ozpin, he must be." Lionheart said.

"Ozpin is here?" Cinder asked.

"That's not a problem, is it?" Vernal interrogated.

"No. Leo, open the passageway to the vault." Lionheart pranced over and did something to the statue in the middle of the room. The dais began to descend, no guesses where it was heading.

"Ozpin?" The enormous man growled. "You're the boy from the train station." He growled and surged forward. Ruby got in his way and shot him, a whirl of petals and she blocked his approach.

I began to move forward as our two sides clashed in combat. The moment breaking like glass.

I approached Cinder, flying over the ground with a scream. She blocked with a summoned sword and we clashed again and again. She smiled at me, sharp calm in the face of my anger. Vernal only stood off to the side.

I brought my sword down on her hard enough to crater the floor but she only stood firm, one sword turned sideways, her eye flaring up with maiden power.

"Stop messing with me!" I called out.

"But it's so easy." She laughed. I charged a little and activated my semblance, bringing the sword to bear against her as wisps of flame clung to me.

"I'll show you," I growled.

We flew at each other, she was on a platform of red flames which carried her forward and I was propelled by my will with one arm stretched forward and the other back, holding the massive weight of Crocea Mors.

I surprised her by backflipping at her and I hit hard enough to send her sliding back. My strength doubled, my speed increased.

I struck out holding onto the mobility and muscle improvements.

She held out a palm and a torrent of flame shot at me but I skirted around it without traction and frontflipped at her bringing my sword down in a massive stroke.

I slammed her and her weapon shattered, like, well like glass. She fell back aura flaring as I bit deep into it. Then I finished the trick and Limit broke, a whirling of blue attacks stormed her as I went for the finishing touch and tried to take her down. I knocked her back into the statue hard enough that pieces of it shattered off her face.

She whipped to her feet, eyes narrowing as I stood stock still, flexing and charging my next semblance. She let out a scream and a torrent of air whipped over us all flinging us and her own allies about.

Without my semblance she put me on the back foot. She came at me spinning like a top with her glass weapons. She slashed at my stomach then tried to take my head off with a swing of her opaque weapon.

She summoned a series of molten arrows and the pieces stabbed my stomach and penetrated my aura hard enough. They were hot enough to leave welts behind where they struck.

She rolled over my back and dragged me down in a choke hold with her weapon around my neck. Getting choked hurts for those unaware. The blood in your head throbs in time with your heartbeat and it's a bunch of pressure on your neck.

The person doing the choking can control how much it hurts based on how hard they do the choke and you have one guess which decision she made about how to choke me out.

She made it hurt. A lot. I kicked back at her and she dragged me to my knees. I managed to get my center of mass under my legs again and dropped my sword. I picked her up and slammed her into the statue. I did it again. And once more before she slid to the side and kicked off me, pushing me into the statue.

The back of my head rung like a bell against the hard stone.

When I got my bearings I slid baseball style and picked up my weapon. When I got back to my feet I faced another opponent.

Black.

I just had to trust that my friends had found their own opponents and we'd be fine. Together we can do this.

He gave me a leering grin. "Jaune, right?"

I said nothing, leveling my broadsword at him. I finished the last bit of charge and turned on Limit Breaker. It was faster to charge now than ever before. The result of practice or something more? I was unsure.

I wanted to get past him and fight Cinder again but she was descending in the elevator on a flux of wind and magic. Her eyes met mine and she gave me a beautiful smile, only marred by half her face. She blew me a kiss, promising vengeance.

Black kicked at me and pushed stepped towards me but I had my semblance activated and outmaneuvered him by hovering.

He tried to breach my space again but I timed him out with a tremendous swing of Crocea Mors. He blocked it with his legs but the blow sent him reeling. He stumbled back a few steps.

He reengaged me more cautiously the second time, without the arrogant smirk.

I struck Mercury back with my sword with a falling aerial attack. It was devastating and it rocked him on his feet.

We clashed again and he bounced off my massive blade. I rolled my wrists and another flying kick was met with the edge of my sword. He kicked off of it and tried to force me into the ground.

I was nimble with my semblance, though. I just rolled away from the pressure.

I spent my semblance while in mid air and hit him with all five hits of Cross-Slash. He blocked them all arms and feet dancing about but I could tell the experience wasn't comfortable. I saw him wince, especially at the tremendous last hit. He tried to punish me but I hadn't over extended. It was all safe pressure and I punished his own jump kick by bringing my sword all the way around my body as I glid through the air.

Even without my semblance I had grown fast. Not fast enough to escape another snapping round kick. Then another from the opposite side. He'd penetrated my range and was seeing fit to make it hurt like hell.

He kneed me in the face and I managed to stumble back.

He tried to approach me and I swiped upwards. The move caught him and launched him airborn. I did it again and launched him a little higher. The tip of my blade tearing into him.

I bench pressed Mercury, juggling him with the massive sword. I hit the ground and swept the blade upwards, knocking him into the air again and I bench pressed him one more time.

It felt like a bad matchup for him and I seemed unstoppable. He backed off when he finally hit the ground and shot at me with his legs. I had range on him and I was brutally strong. Even without my semblance I was fast enough to combo him.

I countered with a blade-beam. We found ourselves staring the other down, our projectiles canceling out.

I heard Nora cry out somewhere to my side but I couldn't let my focus waiver. I had to have faith. Ruby let out a grunt behind me as I continued to glare at Black. When I last got a peek, Ruby was engaging the tall man with Yang and Qrow. I heard him let out a bellow as he fought my friend and girlfriend and mentor.

I supposed that left Weiss, Nora, and Ren fighting the Scorpion and Lionheart with Oscar. Oscar being one of the weaker members of our own squad, I felt a flash of concern for him but I could ill afford the distractions.

I stood still charging my semblance, my aura flaring as I approached the tipping point. Black got the memo. He had to approach me or I would become an even bigger threat.

I'd kill him too. Black deserved it for what he put Yang through.

He came at me pushing off the ground with a flare of his boots. He kicked at me high which I deflected, then he tried low and I punished him with a rising aerieal attack. I sideflipped at him bringing my sword around my body in a massive swing. He was forced to block it and I had him trapped beneath me.

I backflipped in place, threatening Mercury the entire time I was airborne. When I hit the tile I reached out and grabbed him where he was blocking, picked him up off his feet and slammed him into the ground.

He leapt back up to his feet but I was already airborne and threatening another landing aerial attack the entire time. He watched me with a wary look in his eyes, he knew how dangerous my falling attacks could be and while he wasn't quite scared he was over respecting me.

I hit the ground once more and reached out and slammed him into the ground again. If he thought he could just block against me, he'd have another thing coming.

I backflipped in place and was seriously going to do it to him a third time in a row when he boost kicked off the ground and hit me in the face.

I fell back but caught myself on the ground, flipping back to my feet.

Cinder was back up the vault shaft, Vernal wasn't with her, and she had what I could only suppose was the Relic in her hand. A dangerous sly smile on her face as she flexed a hand and blue power flared around her one remaining eye.

A sniper shot struck Cinder's hand and the relic went flying. Her gaze snapped to Ruby who must have fired the shot. Her eye flared with blue power. Vernal was dead, then. I wanted to stand between her and Ruby but I held my position against Black.

Leonardo Lionheart picked the lamp up.

"Jaune stop him!" Ruby called out, she had her eyes on the prize. I was closest to acquiring the relic. The relic was what mattered.

I disengaged Black, hitting him with a triple sword swing, the first two attacks holding him in place before the last, blinding fast, flung him away.

"I got him!" Yang called out, communicating with me that Black wouldn't be free to harass one of my friends in the back.

I activated my semblance and chased Lionheart. I slashed at his shield-like weapon with Crocea Mors.

I chased him down the school corridors, the slashes of my sword tore up the hallways as I sprinted after him. He fired dust back at me which I narrowly dodged again and again. I hovered in place and threw a blade beam at him but he blocked with his shield.

He retreated down a narrow passageway away from the rest of the fighting, the relic still in his free hand.

I kicked him back and threw him into a room and inside there was this glowing, hovering, Grimm, _thing_. It had long sweeping tentacles beneath a large orb. Before I could spend my semblance on either it or Lionheart a woman's voice boomed from it. The voice was quiet and calm but it seemed to come from inside my head as well as the orb. I collapsed as my forehead pulsed with pain.

"Now what's this?" I heard the voice say.

I recognized that voice. I knelt on the ground in front of the Grimm and looked up through my throbbing eyes.

"What have you brought me, Leo?"

"M-m-m…" I stuttered out. "Mother!?"

I'd heard that voice in my dreams and beyond. In my worst nightmares that voice terrorized me. I recalled a thousand horrible dreams as I crouched on the floor of that room.

"Oh you must be Merlot's." The voice purred. I could see her face through the orb. "And haven't you done well for yourself. For us. Hush now. Don't speak."

The voice in my mind commanded me and I bit down on my tongue rather than utter a word. Blood welled up from it in my mouth. I couldn't fight the compulsion. No matter how hard I tried to speak or move I couldn't. I had to obey the thing on the other side of the Grimm. I tried to scream out, the agony in my head far worse than the middling pain coming from my mouth yet all I managed was a quiet moan.

_Salem. _

"We expected you to fail. I expected you to be thrown out by Ozma when he discovered you didn't even have aura. Yet here you are," Salem's voice went on. "You will bring the relic to me." She decided.

"But your grace…" Lionheart tried, he'd regained his footing. The Grimm thing lashed out with one of its tentacles and ripped his throat out. Blood poured out over the room as Lionheart choked on nothing but blood and his own gore.

"Bring me the relic, child. My child. Long have you and your sisters filled my dreams."

I could still say nothing. Blood poured over my lips as I trembled beneath the thing. She was reaching out through it and controlling me so thoroughly I managed not a single other thought.

_Obey me. _The compulsion demanded. It shook something loose inside my mind and I thought I was going to go mad. I reached out and picked up the relic. With trembling hands which slowly grew smoother I strapped it to my waist by a belt.

"Jaune!" It was Nora at the door. "Ruby did something to Cinder, she and Emerald are-" she broke off. She looked down and saw me with Lionheart's corpse, kneeling before the tentacled Grimm. Ren stood behind her, shocked looks on both their faces.

"Kill her," the voice purred from the orb and in my mind. "And the boy."

I couldn't help it. I whipped to my feet and struck against Nora. I spent Limit with intent to kill. I caught her by surprise and blew her off her feet and through the adjacent wall.

Ren cried out in fear. He drew his blades against me but I swept them aside. I charged Limit between our clashes and soon I would have it again. We collided and I laughed madly in his face. Soon I could kill these two and be on my way to Mother. Nora lept from the crater I'd put her into and tried to bring her hammer down on me.

"Jaune why are you doing this?!" Nora screamed. "What's going on?!" I slashed at her with the long edge of Crocea Mors. She ducked and backed off, spinning away from me with her hammer in hand.

I choked on blood and my own mangled tongue worked in my mouth. Parts of it were hanging on by threads of flesh. "Because Mother told me to," I cried out, voice warbled by my destroyed tongue. The words were indecipherable as they exited me. I couldn't stop my movements anymore than I could stop the sun in the sky.

It was something ingrained in me. Deep in my bones. I slashed at her twice before I chased after Ren. I knew he would give me the greater trouble. I brought the sword down on him in a massive overhead slash which slammed him into the ground. Nora's hammer pinwheeled and caught me center of mass and threw me into a wall but she was holding herself back.

I could feel her holding herself back. She clobbered me again and once more. Around the shoulders and chest. She was still not giving it her all, though. If she kept that up I'd win and kill them both.

She had to stop me.

She had to kill me.

"Jaune what did that thing do to you?"

I gargled blood and babbled out something unintelligible. I laughed and tried to scream at the same time. My brain wasn't working quite right. I was sure I was frothing at the mouth besides. All I could think of, all I could focus on, was the desire to kill my friends and if they kept holding back I'd succeed.

I hit Nora like a ton of bricks. I slashed into her aura and bit deep. I cut at her again with a horizontal slash that flung her to the side.

"No!" Ren cried out.

He slashed at me and rained bullets as he jumped over me. I caught one of his blades and hit him like I was swinging a home run. It caught him in the chest and I saw his aura flare up.

"That Grimm must have done something to him. Jaune you have to snap out of it! How do we help him?!"

I knew all their weaknesses. I slashed a golf swing at Ren which nearly put him through the ceiling and ripped a long cut in the paper walls besides.

I was all over him with my sword. Swing away and chipping at his defenses. I'd break through eventually and then… and then… and then…

I muttered madly under the pressure I felt in my thoughts. They were going to die. They must die.

"I don't know," Ren grunted under my assault. "Jaune please," he begged.

I brought my sword down on him tearing up the thin papery walls. He blocked again and again but he wasn't fighting to kill me like I was him. Instead he tried to disarm and subdue me but I backed off. Warding with the long blade, I swept it at his face.

I flew at him like I was a monster and slashed low then high then back and forth in front of my body. I brought the blade all the way around my body and down on him, trying to crush him if I couldn't slice him.

Nora came at me and I caught the handle of her hammer by my free hand and threw her into Ren. They collided and went tumbling down, over the headmaster's office desk.

Nora jumped up at me but I easily blocked and knocked her through a few walls with an expenditure of Limit.

I stood in the middle of the room then. Just charging and waiting for Ren to rise. He came at me low, having seen what kept happening to Nora when she went high but I knew all his moves and never let him get close enough to grab me. I side-flipped and slashed him into a wall. Then I hammered him into again with a giant swing.

Nora came at me again and I ducked under the swing. She reversed it and tried to catch me up in it but I blocked with the side flat of my blade and swept down towards her fingers. It forced her to back off and I climb-hazard her up onto the next floor and slammed her back down again. My blade flashed and sung through the air as I pounded her.

Ren came at me screaming and I kept him off me. I was fighting to kill him and he was fighting just to stay alive. It showed. I backflipped over him, jumped off one of the narrow walls and Limit Break Cross-Slashed my friend in the back as I hung upside down in the passageway.

I hung in place as I delivered the terrifying attack. There was nothing he could do being caught up in it but grunt under the weight of the blows.

One. A slash to the side. Two. A cut across the legs. Three. A blow to his ribs.

Each of the five hits struck true. The second to last one shattered his aura and the last one cut him so deeply at the stomach I knew he would die. I severed his spine and he nearly fell into two gasping halves.

"No!" Nora called out. "Jaune how could you?!" She kept at me with tears in her eyes. She brought the hammer down on me and I bounced off the floor. I slashed at her while she stood guard over Ren and relentlessly whaled on her while all she could do is block.

Some hits got through. She couldn't block everything and, even with Ren dying behind her, she still wasn't fighting back to kill me.

I reared back, took aim and thrust forward with Crocea Mors. It slid through her crackling pink aura and blood welled up in a fountain as I ran her through.

She softly touched my face as I speared her all the way to the base.

I slid my sword into her small body all the way to the hilt and with a last shudder, she died.

She fell back onto Ren and they passed together.

Like that I was the last member of team JNPR.

I wanted to claw my eyes out, I wanted to scream, all I _could_ do was start walking in the direction I knew_, knew,_ Salem to be. I snuck out of the school through the entrance we'd come in on that day we met Lionheart, tearing my way through the walls. I snuck away from the rest of my friends.

She'd looked so much like the blonde woman I knew to be my mother. There was no mistaking it. I was the son of a monster and a monster by proxy.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	34. Black Materia II

**Wow the last chapter was met with mixed reviews to say the least. **

**Might go back and change some details of the last chapter but it'll only be that, details. Make some more payoff between Jaune and Cinder, draw the fight out more, That sort of thing. **

**I got a good review about it so I think I'll take time to make time but otherwise the tragedy in the last chapter stands. **

**It wasn't an April fools joke. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Time or distance. One of those two allowed me to break the spell Salem had on me in the belly of Mistral. I threw up once I had control over my body and collapsed in a dimly lit alley. The acid from my stomach burned my tongue and I spat up blood.

Then I laid down and I sobbed. I'm not sure how long I sat in the alley and cried but it wasn't short. Ren and Nora were dead and I had killed them. I had killed my friends. I was the last member of JNPR and I could hardly go back to my other friends. I was a plant. I felt bugs crawling across my skin and in my eyes. My ears were full of worming _things_. My thoughts were wild and ravenous and they devoured everything. I was a traitor. Salem could control me so she wins. In the grimy gutter tears gushed from my eyes.

My limbs were spasming and I had tremors which ran through my limbs and they weren't stopping. I lay there and charged my semblance and once activated it took a bit of the edge off of reality. Not enough. Not one half enough. Not a millimeter enough. I croaked out something between a laugh and hiccup.

How could I ever look my friends in the eye? How could I recover my own humanity?

I couldn't. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted it to end. I took the sword from the harness behind my back and held it to my wrist. I was shaking so much I couldn't focus and deactivate my own aura so I could cut myself deep enough that I might bleed away and die. I smashed through my scroll but not my rock hard skin. I tossed the blade away. It clanked across the alley and I fell back into a crouched position and returned to my blathering empty sobbing.

I could never return.

I could never go back again.

I was a traitor, I belonged brain and body to Salem. She just worked her way in and controlled me so thoroughly and completely. She squeezed me until only her will remained and not a drop of myself was in my own mind. What could I do? What hope did I have as anything resembling a weapon against the darkness. I was the darkness. I was a face it wore. My Mother, my memories… they were all wrong. They were false. I was false. Even how I got into Beacon was false.

What was I even made of? I'd seen Salem in my dreams. She haunted me. A specter which terrorized me in my nightmares was she. An alien goddess that controlled my thoughts. How long ago had she planted the seed? When I was born? How had I been born?

I felt so absolutely and completely nothing. I looked down at the relic still chained to my waist.

I shook as I stood and withdrew the relic of knowledge. A blue and golden lamp which shone in the midday Mistral sun. It seemed to mock me in its purity. I was of the Grimm and this thing was of the light. My first instinct was to try and smash it but I reigned myself in.

A shadow jumped out at me and whipped around at it but there was nothing and I could have sworn I heard more laughter. More biting, mocking laughter. It echoed through the alley and through my mind. My Mother's laugh directed at me. It made me curl up again and want to try and kill myself again.

What else could I do? What more was I good for than to die in this gutter. I could still feel a pull in Salem's direction. I wasn't sure how I'd never felt it before. It seemed so obvious, so clear, that it flashed like a beacon to my grief-stricken ramble of thoughts. It was the only part of me that made sense.

I should go towards it. My instincts roared at me to bring the lamp to Mother. It was all I could do to fight the temptation. I slammed my head into a brick wall and screamed. I did it over and over again until, along with my tongue, a throbbing sensation came over my forehead.

Just a few more and I'd run out of aura.

Just a few more and it would all finally stop when I bashed my brains in.

I stumbled away from the wall and fell down on trembling legs.

_Obey_.

Parts of my tongue were hanging on by threads of flesh and I couldn't find a comfortable position for it within my mouth.

"No." I spat out. "No!" I sounded mad and crazed to my own ears. I sounded as bad as the Scorpion or worse. "No!"

I was deranged. And I stayed that way all night long in the heart of the city. What was one more screaming delirium down here?

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I'm not sure how long it took me to put something resembling myself together but by the time I did the sun was about mid high.

I picked up my sword and sheathed it. I tried to ignore the burning desire to end my own life or to walk into Mother's arms. I tried to think. I tried to focus. For the first time in what felt my entire life I tried to breath in and concentrate.

I'd gotten one more name out of Salem. Merlot. Suddenly I had a mission, a goal. Find out who Merlot was or die. Those were my choices.

I strode through the underbelly of Mistral and challenged anybody to get in my way. I arrived at the Malachites' bar to its usual tunes.

I walked in boisterously. Let them kill me. Let them try and fight me if they dared. None did. I was fully aware I was out for murder and looking for an excuse for it but compared to the weight of my dead friends what more was this?

Malachite looked over at me, taking in my ruined disheveled appearance. So too did her girls by the bar. They just took me in as I stood by the doorway until my heavy boot falls brought me over to her.

I spat out a chunk of my tongue I'd been picking at in my teeth and a bit of blood. The relic still jingled by my side.

"Jaune, was it?"

"Merlot."

"Pardon?"

"I need to find someone named Merlot. I'm willing to do favors for it. I'm willing to kill for it."

"Is that all?" She tried to act in control. I saw through it. She was taken aback by me. Good.

"Yes."

"How should I contact you once I know something?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You just intend to wait here?"

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"Only for you."

Heels drove into my back, forcing me to the ground. I stood up to face a flash of pink and brown. I recognized the girl, or woman rather, she was just short. I recognized her from team RWBY's stories. Neapolitan. Roman's second in command.

I flipped back to my feet and grabbed Malachite's desk and hit the girl with it hard enough to shatter the wood into splinters.

"Just tell her where your little friend in red has gone and she'll be off of you," Malachite called.

"Ruby?" I looked at the girl who flipped up into the rafters. I grinned. "I can honestly say I have no idea where Ruby is."

I somehow knew, _knew_ that Ruby was alive. I somehow doubted that she was well, however. We had a connection.

Pink and brown swapped. Fury took over her face. She leapt at me with a thin blade.

I held my arms wide and she came down at me. "Do it." I breathed in her face as she tore into my aura at the stomach. "Kill me."

Something in my tone must have made her back off. Perhaps she realized I meant it. Perhaps she realized how crazy I was. Perhaps the moment she froze I grabbed her and flying-push-jump-kicked off her with both legs. She flew out a window.

I drew Crocea Mors, sliding the T shaped shield onto my left arm. Her weapon reminded me of Weiss's. Right now one fight was as good as any other. I activated my semblance.

"Hey, outside!" Malachite ordered. I snorted. She'd have to kill me too. I was in no mood to take orders from anyone, not now, perhaps not ever. I was a stubborn creature at the moment.

The girl teleported on top of me. She slashed down at me and I blocked with my shield with a narrow turn of my wrist. I tried to smack her with the shield, to drive one of the points of the 'T' into her eyes but she flipped up off of me. She landed up in the rafters again and let out a hiss of air in my direction.

I felt unthreatened. It was a win-win for me. Either I died or she did. I was still glowing blue with my semblance. I rolled my neck until it popped and stabbed Crocea Mors down into the wood and waited.

"I told you I don't know where she is. Even if I did I'd have no intention of sharing that with you. Give it up."

She leapt down at me in a graceful backflip that carried her forward. I swept Crocea Mors up but she just acrobatically leaned to one side bringing her blade down at me. I blocked it with my shield and she landed on the giant block. I swung her into the window, using the jagged glass against her.

She teleported away, shattering like one of the windows. I held my ground, wisps of blue light shone over me. I was fast enough to keep up with her when she moved through the world.

She teleported behind me but I'd fought Blake. That was teleportation trick number one, get behind them. I smacked her with my shield and just held onto my semblance even though I could have spent it right then and there. Instead I kept the speed and strength buffs.

She reappeared in front of me and I hit her so hard with my long sword her eyes bulged out and some spit left her lips.

She flickered away and reappeared a ways in front of me but she didn't attack. She just scowled. She put her weapon away and pantomimed sighing.

"That's right." I murmured. "You don't want any of what I am right now. And I don't have what you want anyways."

My semblance was still around. It was usually advantageous to burn it and not hold onto it. But right now… right now it felt _good_. The flames and wisps of light licked at my flesh like comforting caress.

And it didn't seem to be disappearing on me like it had so often when I first unlocked it training with Ruby. It seemed arrogant to believe it would stick around forever but it had seriously been around for a minute. It wasn't going anywhere. A tide of power I could tap into at a moment.

She pointed at me. "Me." I said duly.

She made one hand pursue the other. "Chase me." I interpreted. I was good at charades, I wanted to laugh at that. Boy was I good at _charades_. "Because you don't believe me. You think I'll lead you to Ruby."

She nodded.

"That's fine, I won't but you can believe that," I said. I dismissed her, then. My semblance flared down and my aura turned back to gold rather than the blue hue. I released the power and began to silently charge the next one. I turned around. "Merlot. Give me whatever you have on him. Whatever you can find, and I'll kill whoever you want me to."

Malachite was standing in the corner surrounded by guards. "The target can be anyone?"

Neapolitan crept around and looked with growing interest. I nodded firmly. There was no mistake.

"Then I name Leonardo Lionheart," she said. I think she meant it to be a Herculean task. All but impossible for me to complete. Something to make me back off and reconsider.

I laughed. I laughed for a good long time. "He's dead," I informed her. "Pay up."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm super fuckin' serious. It'll be on the news if it's not already. I killed him. Set him up to die. Got him killed. Whichever. Pay up."

She let out a low growl. She wanted me out of her place and out of her life. I could tell. I was all kinds of crazy and dangerous and I was acting like it. "Bring me the file on Merlot." She snapped to her guards. "You have a seat, deary." She pointed at me. "Then you can get the fuck out of my bar."

"You know who he is, then?" I didn't have a seat.

"I've heard of him," she replied stiffly. "I don't have the details you want. He's a scientist who works with Grimm. He makes them, unmakes them, does all kinds of experiments on them."

My stomach dropped out. A scientist who worked with Grimm. It… it might explain uncomfortably much. It might explain these bugs in my eyes. It might explain why I still heard the whisper of Mother's voice. Had it always been there or was I imagining it now?

This Merlot would explain what I was, where I'd come from. I'd make him or so help me gods I'd die trying.

Something had shaken loose inside me when Mother had reached inside and grabbed me by a set of precious threads no one should be touched at. She'd hounded me into a place in dark recesses of my mind which should be sacred and she hadn't stopped there. She'd tried to swallow me whole. I was still kicking at her, though. I wouldn't betray the spirit of my friends. Not even in death. Not even in whatever I was now which felt an awful lot like death.

I thought I was going mad. I put a finger in my ear and tried to reach inside to where I felt something _crawling _around. The discomfort helped me focus. It gave me purpose. It gave me hatred for Salem which overroad my instincts and my screaming heart.

"I need to find him."

"He has an old laboratory nearby. It's guarded by these modified Grimm. Nobody has bothered to fight and get close to him. He might not even be there." She received the file and handed it to me. Her guards were giving me wary looks. Like I was rabid and might lash out at any moment. "Now get out, and don't come back now."

I took it and left.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	35. Flower Girl IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

_It was well known that Yang didn't let just anybody touch her hair but I had always been an exception. Almost. _

_Some of my first memories of Yang's hair. Yeah, the distant swish of the cloak and the petals and stuff too. My mother's voice and the feel of warm light and skin. _

_But there was Yang's hair next, golden and true. Much more firm than the silver imprint mom left in my heart. I could remember playing in the stuff, like a mound of straw and burying my face in it forever._

_I didn't remember that day in the wagon. But I do remember the aftermath. I could hear my father shouting, his fear was the only thing that ever actually provoked his rage. When he finally stopped his tirade and let her back inside to see me and uncle Qrow her eyes were already red. _

_From crying, rather than anger._

_He watched her run up to me and pick me up._

"_Ruby, I'm so sorry." She'd sobbed and grabbed me so tightly in her arms. She cried too hard. I couldn't help but burst into tears with her. _

"_C-c-can I?" I asked. She pulled back and looked hard into my eyes. She waited patiently with tears running down both of our faces. I choked on the words, "can I brush your hair?"_

_She'd giggled as tears poured from her eyes. She'd nodded furiously and we both calmed down as I combed through the golden locks._

_Then when I was older, I remember the two years that I had to wait before going to school, where I wasn't around my sister every day, if only barely. I remember waiting by the door for her to come back and to sit behind her and braid it, and brush it, and I could finally tell her all the things I'd been waiting to._

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We never found Jaune's body.

It was the implications of that which were the worst part.

Sure, we never found the relic either but that was secondary. My heart felt so heavy and fit to break at any moment.

It was like when Cinder incerated Pyrrha all over again.

We found Ren and Nora, they'd died to some deep slashes and thrusts but that couldn't have been Jaune. There was no way. There must be some other explanation.

When Cinder had come back up my eyes had flared up again in her presence and I'd nearly blown her away with the power it had summoned. Emerald carried Cinder away while the other held us off. They escaped. They fled before our superior numbers especially when Blake showed up with reinforcements. I somehow couldn't even be happy about that either, seeing Blake again.

I felt like somebody had turned my heart and legs to lead and laid miserably in my bed at our rental. I could still smell Jaune's scent. A heavy, musky odor. It made my eyes water. Jaune, Ren, and Nora were gone.

"Ruby?" Yang knocked at the door. I knew she was worried about me. That was the only reason I responded.

"What's up sis?" It was weak.

"We… we need to talk."

"I keep telling everyone it wasn't Jaune. There must be something else happening."

"Ruby the marks on their bodies was consistent with Jaune's weapon." Yang sounded tired.

"Jaune wouldn't do that. All of you are doubting him. All of you think he killed them and took off with the relic but there was no need to do that! He could have betrayed me to Tyrion. He could have set us up in a dozen different ways. It doesn't make any sense."

"Ozpin said that the Grimm that was in there would allow communication. Communication between whoever and Salem. He says Jaune could have been a sleeper agent who only activated at the right code or phrase. No one thinks the Jaune we knew did it, Ruby. But he still did it."

"It isn't fair. Jaune would never. Not to Ren and Nora."

"Rubes…"

"Don't call me that!" I snapped more than I meant to.

"Ruby we have to talk about what to do next. You should be there for that."

I curled up, wrapping my hands around my stomach. It just hurt so much. More than I could bear. The pain made me writhe against the sheets in agony.

"Ruby!"

"I-it just h-hurts so much." I sobbed out. "W-what a-ah-m I supposed to do?"

"We move on, Ruby. It's all we can do."

"I can't. Not from this."

"Ruby I love Blake." Yang confessed sitting down next to me. "I know how you're feeling right now. When she left it took me months to pull myself together."

I grabbed fistfulls of my sister's hair and cried into it like I had when I was a young girl. I sobbed so hard it racked my body. The pain I felt in my chest was just too intense.

"But eventually I just had to. You know? You'll bounce back from this. I promise you will. I know it feels like so much right now but it will get better."

"No one expects you to be okay right now. Just do what you can." She held me as I cried. It didn't work, didn't make me feel much better. I missed Jaune's touch, the feel of his arms around me. I missed his aura, always so strong, so certain. So full. "Just do what you can and the rest of us will support you."

"Wh-what about Jaune?"

"We'll find him and do what we can for him."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know Ruby. I don't have all the answers. We have to assume Jaune is taking the relic to Salem. We have to stop her from getting her hands on the others too. Whatever that means. Whatever it takes."

"I don't wanna think about that anymore."

"No one blames you. Just take your time."

Yang stood up, leaving me curled up on the bed.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I came down the steps in our rental for the first time in a day. Everyone looked over at me and I wish they wouldn't.

I sniffled.

"How are you Ruby?" Weiss asked rubbing one arm with the other nervously. She was holding two mugs and she passed one to me, creamey and sugary just how I liked it.

I took it and wiped my face. Weiss was doing what she could for me. I met her blue eyes and saw a resolved strength in them. I'd always admired that quiet calm she possessed

How was I supposed to answer? That I felt like a fragile teacup? Set to shatter at a moment's notice and like nothing would ever be right again. I burned. They just stood there as I burned and no one would help. Could help.

Weiss was trying, reaching out to me desperately. Yang, too. I'd have to manage for them.

"A little better," I managed. "Not so good, though." I tried to smile but it was weak.

"We're here for you Ruby." Weiss said. "Whatever you need."

I needed Jaune. Not to dis on my BFF but Weiss just wasn't enough right now. She was a lot but not enough. I felt like I'd never be whole. And I knew that he needed me. He needed us. Wherever he was he was hurting. His scroll feed had died and he was totally missing.

"I heard about you and Jaune," Blake muttered. "It can't be easy with what he did."

"I have all of you," I said. "And it's not what he did. Salem must have done something to him. He would never turn on us like that. Not on Ren and Nora either." I was adamant. They'd see. "He needs our help wherever he is. He needs my help even if he doesn't know it. Even if he's something else at the moment. And I'll be there to help him when we meet again." In my heart of hearts I knew I'd see him again. For now I had my partner, I had my team. I had my friends. That would have to be enough. Have to be.

Weiss gave me a weak smile back. She stood up and led me down the rest of the stairs and sat me down and kept one arm around me.

"What's our next play?" Yang asked. "We have no reason to stay here."

"With the Atlas embargo I worry for James next." Ozpin said through Oscar's lips. "Now that _Salem_," he emphasized, perhaps for my sake, "will soon have the relic of knowledge it is imperative that we prevent the other relics from falling into her hands."

"These relics," Blake began, "what happens if she gets them all?"

"The relics all have power, for example it is the relic of creation which is responsible for levitating the upper city of Atlas. And with the relic of knowledge she can ask the lamp any question and receive a true and full answer. Both would be and are incredibly dangerous in her hands."

Yang let out a low whistle.

"The relic of knowledge has limits for example only three questions may be asked every one hundred years. And it cannot answer questions about those events yet to pass."

"So the relics are an end unto themselves." Blake clarified. "She doesn't need them for anything."

Ozpin hesitated. He leaned on his cane. "With the relics," he went on at length, "all of them together, she can summon the old gods back to Remnant. That is what we must prevent. If the gods are summoned too soon, before humanity is ready, they shall wipe out their creation and humanity with it."

It was Qrow's turn to whistle.

"Lords above." Weiss murmured.

"Before humanity is ready?" Yang questioned. "What exactly does that mean?"

"While humanity remains divided."

"Before we have accomplished world peace?" Weiss sounded shocked.

"Precisely that."

"That's Salem's plan then. Why she keeps us divided," I determined.

"Yes. It is also why I try to unify the states across Remnant."

"We're not ready." Blake said. "The Whitefang alone is enough reason for them to destroy us all."

"Indeed. And why we should make our next steps to Atlas and prevent the staff of creation from falling into her hands. As I mentioned I fear for James. If he has turned on us as Leo had…" he let that thought hang in the air.

Weiss let out a smoldering sigh but said nothing. I rubbed her back and leaned on her shoulder. I knew she wanted nothing to do with Atlas. Not after she just escaped. She wanted to go back like she wanted a hole in her head.

"The borders are closed, though." Yang protested. "This is all well and good but how do we actually get in?"

"Argus." Qrow said. "Argus is still the largest military base outside of the kingdom. It's the one place that isn't closed or shut down. Get there, and we may be able to convince them to give us a ride to Solitas."

"I suppose we do have Weiss. That alone might be enough to convince them. And if we can get a message through to Ironwood he may make an exception." Blake plotted. "Perhaps you set up a code before you -um- died." She looked at Ozpin and Oscar.

"And James will be doing all he can to get communications up and running. It will be the fastest way to restore things after the Black-Out day," Ozpin agreed. "For once, time may be on our side."

"It might mean sending Weiss ahead alone." Yang picked out. "They might make an exception for her and not the rest of us. If you went on alone do you think you could get a message to Ironwood."

"Yes. I do." Weiss exhaled. She didn't make it sound pleasant. "If nothing else I should be able to get in contact with my sister and she works extremely closely with him."

"Well it's a plan, a loose plan which might be for the best under the circumstances." Blake said.

That made me miss Jaune. He was always the strategist and I shook slightly in Weiss's arms. She squeezed me closer to her with a concerned look. I'd need to stop worrying her. I'd need to be strong. I'd need to be better. Jaune was counting on me as were my team.

"Perhaps we should take time to remember the fallen. Argus is going nowhere and James is skilled at what he does. Closing the border was an excellent move, all things considered. At least at keeping the agents of Salem away. Unrestricted access might be more concerning and I suppose he's due a little paranoia under the circumstances. What happened at Beacon was… traumatic. For everyone."

I gave him a shallow nod. I wondered if I'd start to lose my team too the way Jaune had. That horrible thought was nearly enough to send me scattering across the floor. It was a hard thought to swallow, my team were just as mortal and could be unwound as easily as Jaune's had. I resolved to never let it happen. I imagined Jaune had made a similar resolution, though.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"How are you really doing Ruby?" Weiss asked. We stood alone out in our little courtyard. I inhaled a shaking sigh.

"Not good Weiss. It's bad. It's really bad. You weren't there but Jaune was often there to help keep me going. When things were bad against Vernal and the Knuckelavee."

She rubbed my back. I leaned into the feeling of her fingers against my bare skin. Our aura's overlapped slightly. Her's was a frigid yet familiar thing. The feeling was like being inside while it was snowing out. It was like holding a hot cup of chocolate in one hand and resting. You could feel the crispness in the air but it couldn't touch you. I breathed the feeling of it in. It was different from the almost-too-warm of Yang's aura or the flaring intensity of Jaune's.

"I know how much you must be missing him. Ren and Nora too."

I cried a little at their names. "They'd be happy, I think that they went out together. Finally," I said. "And you? Weiss? You never liked him!" I laughed a little.

"Hey! I started to see what you and Pyrrha were on about. At least towards the end. He was a good guy."

"He was so sweet. He'd do anything I asked him to. He would have killed and died for me."

"A big old golden retriever," Weiss agreed. "That must have been scary."

"A little. I mean who wants that kind of responsibility.

"You know I'd kill and die for you too, Ruby."

"I know, Weiss. But… I just can't right now. Can't think about that. I don't want that kind of responsibility. And he became dangerous, too." I took a drink from my coffee. "And I got to watch him grow. I got to feel like I was a part of it."

"I saw him fighting Cinder. He wasn't doing bad. At least while his semblance was active. His semblance… do you think it might help him break out of Salem's influence."

"Probably." The semblance was about the soul. Even if she poisoned his mind there was that piece of him that had to remain, right? "Weiss, do you think he's out there right now? Alone and scared?"

"Have you met Jaune recently. I think Salem should be scared of what he's going to do to her. He's going to cut her head off. He's pretty particular about revenge and I think Ren and Nora will count."

"That's only if he isn't blaming himself. Do you think he knows how much we all love him?"

"He's in pain, wherever he is. That's for sure. I… Even if he breaks free I'm not sure he'll be able to live with himself." Weiss played things straight. Jaune did that too. He never lied to me, even to comfort me. I think that's one of the things I liked about him. He was always just there beside me anyways.

"You think he might take his own life?"

"If it's that or be a pawn of Salem's, I think it's a possibility."

"And there's nothing I can do about it." I cried a little more and Weiss wrapped me in her arms. I inhaled the scent of her pale hair. The tranquil creamy smell of her shampoo filled my jammed nostrils. I rested my chin on her shoulder.

"You'll be there. You'll be ready to help him. We'll be there to help him."

"How can you even say that. I wasn't there to help him this time."

"You can't blame yourself. You won. You drove back Cinder again. And the relic... well who cares about the relic. Ozpin mentioned he used some of the questions before he sealed it away. Sure it matters for the long term but none of that should matter to you right now. You just focus on getting better. And besides, this was all Salem's doing. She did this to him. To us."

"I know it's stupid but… he was such a good kisser too. That's really getting to me today. I could use some of that right about now." I cried a little more.

Weiss wiped the tears from my face as she gazed at me. She kissed my cheek gently. it wasn't quite the same, nor would I have wanted it to have been. It wasn't as full. She didn't have to lean down and make an effort out of it, not like Jaune would have. And he would have for me. Then she pulled me close again. We stayed that way for a long time. A long long time.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	36. Job's a Job

**Some of you on never played FF7 and it shows. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"How long are you going to follow me, you mute bitch." With her teleportation and illusions there wasn't much I could do about it. We both knew if it came down to it I'd win, though. I'd shown that earlier. But she could escape anytime she wanted so I couldn't chase after her and end it. I could activate my semblance and smash her around with my strength or speed and win by standing still.

But only by standing still.

I walked past a billboard proclaiming Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, Cinder Fall, Hazel Rainart, and the Scorpion as wanted. My friends lived. I'd go spy on them later, when Neapolitan wasn't watching. Just to check up on them. Then I'd head my separate way.

She rapidly poked one finger through a loop in the other hand. "Fuck," I interpreted. She pointed at me. "Myself."

She clapped her hands giddily in her approval and her eyes switched colors.

"I need money," I muttered. "And a new scroll. I don't suppose you have any ideas."

She reached out into an illusion and retrieved a red brimmed hat.

"Ones that don't involve Ruby. I really seriously don't know where she is."

She looked like she didn't believe me, eyebrows furrowed.

"Well tough shit. Unless you want to go another round." She rubbed her chest where I hit her. "I'd be all for that."

She just frowned.

"Fair enough," I said. "Why do you even want to find Ruby."

She drew a line over her throat and fondled the red and black hat.

"You want revenge for Roman Torchwick."

She nodded.

"Ruby didn't kill your boss." I dropped the harsh news on her.

She cocked her head sideways at me as we walked together through Mistral. It was… it was actually nice to have someone to talk to. Talk at, even. Otherwise I'd be alone with my thoughts and that just wouldn't be good for me. I was still wishy-washy on ending my own life.

I deserved it too. I wanted to die for what I'd done to my friends. I was the culprit, the thief in the night who robbed them of the opportunity of ever being 'together, together.'

At least they were together in death, now.

"A Grimm got him," she frowned up at me at that. "You can't even get revenge." I laughed. "You poor bitch. Not that I'm any better." Who was I supposed to kill in my hunt for vengeance now? Me. And believe me I was thinking of ways of getting to that son of a bitch. Unfortunately he was running out of friends.

An alien goddess had control over my mind. I was little more than a puppet under the right circumstances. I suppose if I had been like a puppet, all uncoordinated, Ren and Nora might have had a chance at subduing me. Instead I'd acted more or less fluid. That was a little scarier. Or a lot.

She smashed one fist into the other.

"If you were going to kill me you would have done it back at the bar. Don't act. You can't pull it off. Not while I'm awake and I assure you I'll be on my guard while sleeping. You won't get it done then either, not with my aura level."

She gave me an adorable pout. Her pink lips pressed together and out. Her pink and brown hair flowing over her shoulders.

"I know how you feel. I need revenge against Cinder. You know her? Cinder Fall?"

Her grin stretched.

"Don't tell me you want to kill her too? Did she get your boss killed? Set him up?"

She nodded.

"That's as good as killing him, I suppose. I think we may be able to help each other. Ruby really didn't kill him. Ruby doesn't have it in her to kill somebody. She always goes out of her way to avoid it."

She frowned and pointed at me.

"She's not like me. I'm a murderous asshole."

She shook her head indicating I'd guessed wrong and pointed at me again.

"What about me?"

She rotated one finger next to her head.

"I am crazy. Don't even get me started. If nothing else I'm suicidally insane. And that doesn't even get to these bugs in my eyes."

She pantomimed doing a line of hyper. Pinching one side of her nose and breathing in.

"I'm not on anything. I'm just fucked up."

She touched the tips of opposite forefingers together.

"What's that mean? It's not the same thing."

We walked in two-sided silence for a few minutes down a rainy street.

"You know where somebody with a loose moral compass can make some money around here relatively fast."

She pointed a thumb over her shoulder back at Malachite's bar.

"Yeah, I sorta burned that bridge. And it can't involve Don Corneo. I had him tortured. Killed a bunch of his men, too."

Her smile widened looking up at me.

"Oh is that how you get your jollies?"

She just grinned up at me.

"Well I suppose we could just do official huntsman work. That's always lucrative."

She pointed a finger between us.

"Yeah I thought you were following me. That makes it an us. Keep up. Plus I just might be your best shot at murdering Fall. I almost fuckin' had her. And I might know where she's headed next."

She looked at me in surprise.

"Yep. Her and Black, too. Fought them relatively recently."

She put a hand to her mouth and silently laughed at me.

"Yeah they lived. Go ahead and giggle. Next time I'll get one of them. At least one of them. Well, Cinder has the powers of the spring maiden now. It might be even harder than before."

She gave me a confused look. Hell, who was she going to tell? She was… easy to talk to besides. I wasn't sure if it was the muteness but it might be.

"It's a whole thing. Ancient powers passed along person to person. Myths and legends. It's fucking bullshit is what it is. Girls only club. So maybe you could get in on that action."

She silently snorted, full of doubt. A little air escaping her nose.

"It's true. You can be the one to fight her and find out the hard way or you can take my word for it. She's even more dangerous now. And she was already a heaping pile of it before. I surprised her yesterday and I'm only getting stronger from what I've seen but she just added a big helping of power to herself."

She pointed at herself then smashed one fist into her open palm to indicate violence.

"Could you beat her?"

She nodded. Letting me know I'd guessed right.

"Maybe. Maybe before but probably not now. You'd be in serious trouble. I'd be in serious trouble." I let that sink in, I was able to beat this ice-cream girl and if I was not able to beat Cinder that only meant she wouldn't be able to either.

She made a complicated series of gestures.

"I didn't get that. But it doesn't matter, does it?"

She just frowned at me and I strode forward. She was practically jogging to keep up and I had no intention of slowing down.

The relic jingled by my side as I walked.

"You know maybe it can involve Don Corneo. You up for stealing from a mob boss? It might involve torture and death. I could use someone with your talents."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Some broken limbs and I learned the news (Neapolitan had clapped at that). Don Corneo was holed up in his mansion with a whole lot of guards and probably a whole lot of money. Evidently he hadn't taken being tortured very well.

Go figure.

Neapolitan or just Neo was working beside me and honestly it felt good to have somebody watching my back, even if they were criminal scum. Which, I mean, beggars couldn't be choosers from their glass houses.

I needed a pseudonym. I could hardly keep calling myself Jaune Arc even though my weapon and face would be recognizable. I needed a haircut and makeover and a new name. I had to hide from my friends as much as it bit at me.

I was lucky they hadn't reported me to the police. The wounds on Nora and Ren's bodies would be unmistakable as coming from my weapon.

More importantly I needed the money to do all that. I was a long ways away from hopping on a horse and riding out to Merlot's laboratory, as much as I may want to. Instead I needed to stay in the city for a while.

That meant laying low and coming up with a heist. I needed money. Enough that I didn't have to worry about it for a long time.

I was struggling to come up with a new name for myself. That was always the hardest part. Names. I thought that as I broke one of Don Corneo's lackeys' fingers.

Neo and I had him tied down in a hotel room on the lower levels. It was dirt cheap and nobody would ask any questions. Especially if we left no body behind.

He screamed into a gag and it came out muffled. Nickel was the name we managed to get out of him.

"Shshsh." I told him. "You're going to tell me the security details on Don Corneo's mansion or I'm going to break every last bone in your body. If you scream I'll hurt you even more than that. Are we clear? Everything goes well and you get to walk on out of here. You might have to find a new boss but that doesn't really matter compared to your life, does it?"

He seemed to realize I was actually waiting for a response and gave a slow shake of his head. I nodded at Neo and she pulled out the gag.

"Now, what's the security look like?"

"He's going to kill you for this, he's going to-"

Neo gave a lecherous grin and stabbed him through the foot. Who was this guy fooling? He didn't even have aura. There was no way the Don cared about him a Lien. Not that we cared considering we were planning to rob him blind. She covered his mouth with the other hand, not that we really needed to down here per se, and looked him in the eye.

Her gaze flickered out like a hungry lizard's tongue to meet his eyes and devour all of the pain therein.

"Boy you don't even have aura. I can fix that for you. Unlock your aura and make it all go away." He was older than me, probably by a few years. Might be twenty-one, twenty-two. I watched him consider it. Aura was a game changer. A kid like him had to know what it meant, what it could mean. It'd mean a pay raise if nothing else. It meant increased survivability. It meant the power to fight back against those dastardly huntsmen.

"I can make the pain go away too. It'll heal you right up, even your broken fingers." They were tied behind his back. Nice and easy within snapping distance. "What's it going to be, my man."

"Fuck you, I ain't your man."

I broke another one of his fingers. Neo stuffed the gag back in his mouth while he screamed.

"We're not making much headway with this one. Might have to kill him and grab a fresh one. Start over." I said it clinically to Neo. Her eyes went wide at the thought of the violence. I even thought maybe the tips of her breasts were protruding more than before from the excitement. She gave a silent laugh and I hoped it was just my imagination. For my part I didn't have a carnage boner.

A murder erection I distinctly did not have. I wasn't a sadist. Just a pragmatist.

I had to admit there was a bit of an endorphin rush at the thought of snapping this guy's neck, though. With Neo's semblance we'd just walked up and grabbed him from the mansion and we'd walked away, under the cover of an illusion.

Suddenly I had some symptoms come at me and I blinked hard at the tactile sensation of bugs in my eyes until they stopped. Nerves firing which shouldn't have been.

"I'm thinking maybe we just hammer the place. Go all in and kill everyone in our way," I said. "Your thoughts, Neapolitan?"

She stamped a foot.

"Beg your pardon, I meant Neo." I hadn't but she seemed content to insist on it now that I'd figured it out. I took it as a good sign.

"M-m-m. M-m-m." Came from under the gag.

"Sorry, do you have friends in there? Some buddies perhaps?"

Neo pulled the gag out of his mouth. Nickel spat on the floor, very much not in our directions. He didn't want another broken finger was what that told me.

"You'll never make it like that. The Don has a safe room. A panic vault. You'll never get in and get what you want that way."

"And you've telling us this now because…"

"I want a cut. He's got millions stashed away. A-and I want my aura unlocked... And I walk free."

So that's how it is. Money talks, money talks. Apparently louder than broken bones could.

"Tell me about this panic room."

"It's got Titania walls and big electric locks."

"What kind?"

"The fuck should I know? It's like you see in bank vaults though. His office is in there. Or at least it is now they moved it from the second floor. He's been paranoid. There's been talk."

"Talk about how somebody got to him." I nodded. I put my face in his. "Somebody did. I'm going to do it again."

"It was you. It was you at the Honey Bee Inn." His brown eyes went wide.

"Maybe. Tell me about the mansion."

"It's built with choke points in mind. And places we're supposed to go to to lay down fire if there's an assault. It's all built around this central courtyard, too. It has mines in the walls, explosives at every corridor. They can be remotely activated by the Don. The whole place is booby-trapped. It's supposed to be huntsman proof."

"Nothing is actually huntsman proof."

He shrugged but the fact he was panting hard ruined the illusion of calm. "Couldn't say."

"Talk to me about the patrols you were on."

"They're fairly strict about it. Somebody will have noticed I'm gone, even. Every hour on the hour and through the center courtyard. Around the building, too."

"How many?"

"A hundred of us at a given time, maybe."

A hundred could be a problem. Especially if they had proper choke points and the right hardware. Hard light weapons or magnetically accelerated rifles were huntsman level. There were also electric weapons which I was sure could find Neo, invisible or not. I'd seen Neptune use one. An explosion could also take me down. Limit was good but I wasn't invincible.

"Aura?"

"Some of us have it, some of us don't. The Don hasn't been in a position to be picky about his men. Not with his empire crumbling under pressure to the Malachites."

I leaned back and folded my arms. I exchanged a looked with Neo. She flickered in and out of the visible spectrum and warbled a hand.

"Might be too many to just walk in to. Plus the explosives. They gonna be a problem for you?"

She waved her hand again.

"Samesies," I grunted.

I had him walk me through the layout of the place in enough detail that I was able to draw a map of the first and second floor. The panic office was on the bottom floor. A big, heavy thing like that couldn't be above ground.

Neo gave me a pleading look and I nodded. She walked behind Nickel and she bent down like she was going to untie him. Giving him one last shred of hope before she snapped up and slit his throat. I watched her take extreme pleasure in doing it.

She shuddered with the living corpse as his lifeblood drained soundlessly onto the floor. She looked ecstatic in the company of death. A low narrow smile on her lips.

It was clear to me. I just needed to give her lots of targets. It seemed like it had been a long time since she was able to indulge in such things. Heists. Murder. All of it. Money must trickle. The blood must flow.

Most importantly I needed to keep her focused on Cinder rather than Ruby. I think the message was starting to sink in but she could relapse. Besides, I wanted Cinder to die and another body wouldn't hurt.

I just needed to make sure she didn't run out of her little pleasures and it seemed to me like I'd have a loyal ally. Underneath it all it seemed like she was just lonely and scared. Especially without her boss. I think there was a part of her that liked taking orders.

And weren't we all like all that? I was like that without Ruby for one. I wasn't sure she would approve of this but she probably didn't approve of me murdering our friends either so there was that.

Neo didn't seem so bad. A bit of a sadist but hey, me too. There was a part of me that took sick pleasure in bringing ruin to my enemies. There was a sideways joy in delivering a boot to their faces.

And my friends… if I ever saw them again they'd have to understand. I did what I had to to find out about Merlot… this… my father. I had so many memories. Like visiting Shion. We're they all fake? I had to learn more about myself. If I had to shake hands with a few demons to make it happen then big fucking whoop.

Neo looked at the blood on her stiletto and wiped it off on the Nickel's clothes.

I could work with this. I could live with this. I just needed to throw away my pride.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	37. Job's a Job II

**I got an interesting review about Raven. She's still alive. Vernal was the Spring Deva. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I took my position alongside the mansion. Stealth was the goal and it was the dead of night which made my semblance a no-no. My semblance was the antithesis of stealth. I waited next to Neapolitan for a pair of guards to approach the same blind corner we'd snagged Nickel from and killed his buddy.

Random chance that we ended up with Nickel and depositing the other guard's body in an alley. I suppose Nickel ended up in an alley too so there's that.

A patrol was coming up.

I activated my semblance at the last second and spent it leaping out and grabbing one of the pair. "Hey-gck." I broke his neck by using my semblance on the move. He had aura and I just went right through it. It was blue colored and small compared to the flare of my semblance. A double flash of blue accompanied the sound of breaking bones and cartilage.

The shattered moon shone it's soft light down overhead, giving everything an otherworldly appearance.

Neapolitan brought her's down much more stealthily. She smirked up at me to rub it in while she choked the dude she was holding to death or unconsciousness.

We dragged them into the mansion's blind corner. I stepped up, jumped off the wall, and pulled a security camera off the wall and crushed it with my bare hands. The metal crumpled beneath my fingers.

"How long do you figure we have?"

She held up five fingers.

I nodded in relative agreement. It could be as many as five minutes. That wasn't all that much time all things considered. In a fight it was practically forever but for a series of fights as we infiltrated? Not so much. I started charging up my next Limit Break. When we moved we moved together like we'd practiced it. In truth we were both relatively skilled hunters. This just came par for the course. I pulled my longsword and tried to jimmy the mansion doors open with the tip of the shorter, thinner blade.

Neapolitan teleported up high on the mansion walls and disabled another security camera. Whoever was supposed to be watching those wasn't doing a good job. Or malfunctions were common in which case Don Corneo deserved this. He deserved what we were about to bring down on him.

I struggled with the lock. The long blade I was using wasn't designed for this kind of play. In the end I resolved to simply cut it at the lock. I stepped back, took careful aim, and swept my sword down at the door. I hit the lock dead on and prayed I wouldn't trigger an electric alarm system.

_Cink. _

The door opened and we trickled inside. No alarms went off. Maybe it was luck or maybe there wasn't one in set up at the door.

Inside there were places the plaster had been redone recently. They stood out amongst the neater walls as the places most likely to conceal explosives. I entered into a fine atrium, no-where near as large as that of Haven's. There were five guards there. I brought my sword to bear and Neapolitan silenced them with her semblance.

We were on them. I brought the longsword around and neatly divided one's shoulders. I sideflipped through the air, low to the ground, both hands on Crocea Mors with the shield still on my back and cut into another with two rapid horizontal swings.

One of them was trying to speak into a microphone at his collar. Barking out commands for reinforcements or similar but it came out hushed. I cut him down with a piercing movement that ran him through near the heart.

The mansion's quarters were tight. I thought it would be best to just use the longsword for now.

Neo killed one by stabbing down through the collar bone down into the chest cavity. A spray of bullets chased her and silently shattered a large chandelier. It fell to the ground and scattered across the ground. She backflipped and cartwheeled back away from the arms fire, her eyes drawn in focus.

Her gaze fluttered. Her eyes rolling back in her head and her eyelids moving fast as she tried to concentrate. I got between her and the shooter. Blocking her with my body and shielding her from the damage.

I was on to the last man by then. I picked him up with one hand and drove my sword through his chest with the other. My shield was slightly folded in sheath form on my back and my breastplate shone in the darkness.

Things were going well. The current objective was to get at least Neo into the Don's office. That was our win condition. Our lose condition was getting caught too soon and being forced to fight all the guards and wading through the minefield. In that case we wouldn't even get the Don. He'd be sealed away inside his little vault and not even Limit would let me get access to him.

The chandelier had scattered glass all across the floor and it crunched under my boots as Neo let sound return to the room. Her semblance was fucking crazy. Though mine was a little like that too. Mine was about damage and raw skill. Her's, on the other hand, had utility in spades.

She could put up both visual and auditory illusions and had at the very least some kind of short range teleportation feature. Maybe longer than I thought, but she could do about fifty feet in my estimation. That's the biggest cap I'd seen on her doing it.

She was how I was going to win this thing.

Soft blue light preambled through the atrium and windows. The moon was high tonight and light trickled into the now dark mansion from outside.

"You ready?" I whispered.

She just gave me an eager grin and we proceeded through the house. There was a choke point ahead with more guards. Neo hushed them and I started cutting them down.

This room still had the lights on unlike the atrium and the blood was plainly visible in the soft yellow lights as it splashed across a fine painting.

I tried to cut through flesh and met aura. I sent the man stumbling even if I didn't kill him. He fell down to his knees and tried to rise. A wordless shout at his lips.

I thrust up under the ribs of another and charged a little. My semblance activated. I used the speed and strength to slice another nearly in half. He fell down in a silent scream.

I came back to the one with aura and I spent my semblance on a whirlwind of attacks. The same one I'd done to Cinder. His head hit the ceiling hard enough to crack it and he died from the trauma I put his torso through before I flung him. His red aura shattered under my assault. I'd perfectly timed the arrival of my semblance to deal with this more difficult foe.

Machine gun fire peppered my back and I lanced out with a leap and reached out, grabbed the man and tossed him behind me into Neapolitan's waiting arms. She put the small blade into his throat and beamed as he died in her loving arms.

I looked around and spotted a security camera. I pointed it out to Neo as I sliced the last guard down and she destroyed it.

We had to be fast. This whole operation was speed dependent. Otherwise the Don might start setting off his explosives and calling his men enforce. Neo drew back from where she put her blade through the camera.

Anything could give us away. Missing camera feeds or guards which didn't check in when they were supposed to. Plus someone could come across the bodies we were leaving behind in our wake. I figured that might give us away, too.

There was a plan B. I had an explosive that might be able to crack the vault open but without knowing what kind of locks were on it I'd had to make a guess with the fire dust crystal.

Neo had watched me rig the thing up with rapt attention back in the motel room with the dead man still on the chair.

_"Just in case."_

I'd said.

_"Might be able to blow our way into the thing. You think you can teleport through a crack in the wall?"_

She'd just nodded. It was good to have back up plans. If nothing else we'd make the Don uncomfortable and he'd probably be loath to call the police and have them go through his house. The last thing he wanted was cops around.

We might be able to wait him out. He'd have to come out eventually. Of course if his men overwhelmed and killed us it would be over.

Killed me, rather. Neo could just escape.

For now she was sticking things out with me because I was fun and I might get her that shot at Cinder. If that changed I'd be willing to bet she'd be gone.

We battled our way through a hushed corridor next. Neo's parasol was bullet proof, probably with webbed Titania. And she led the charge with her legs. A flurry of kicks broke the lead sentry's neck. Before I leapt over her and brought my sword down on the next. I went right through the gun he tried to raise to shield himself and bit deep at the collar. He went down.

If our map was accurate, that just left the Don's office ahead.

He was the first to notice us in the next well lit room.

I rolled into the room and thrust forward into a guard's stomach only to meet aura. I stood and slashed at him once, twice, thrice at the neck until I got through. Neo handled a guard with an electric stick by using his own charging momentum to fling him into the ceiling.

The electric door to the vault started to slowly close.

It was big with these metal knobs which would undoubtedly be hard to blast through or force open.

The Don was on the other side in a disheveled office with a mahogany table hammering away at a button.

Limit activated as I sliced into the stomach of another aura ridden sentry. I'd get through the last two of them eventually but not soon enough.

I used my great strength and an arcing wide swung to clock one in the head. He dropped like a sack of rocks from the trauma to his head. Then I stepped forward and smashed the pommel of my sword into the nose of the last hard enough to drive it back into his head.

I flicked my weapon into the door to wedge it open. The Titania in my sword groaned but held. The metal really was incredible. Maybe a bit of edge warping but nothing I couldn't get repaired if the rest of this op went well.

I gestured to Neo and she flickered inside through the tiny gap in the door. She pulled the Don's hand off the button and hit a different one and the door started to open.

I strode inside and Neo unhushed us.

"So," I said with heavy footfalls. "Should I tell you how this plays out or let you guess?" He leaned away from us with fear in his eyes.

I pressed a button with an arrow to the left on his desk, the same way the door was going and the mechanical vault closed behind me, reversing a second time on electric hinges.

Wide eyed, he was locked in with us.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I examined the edge warp on Crocea Mors with a scowl. There were some things that were sacred, some things that should remain as they were. For gods' sake if my mind and body weren't one of them then my sword should be.

The warp wasn't severe enough that the blade wouldn't sheath or anything. And it wasn't in a bad location per se, about midway between the hilt and tip. It could be worse, I decided.

I looked from the blade's edge down at Don Corneo.

From the corner of my eye, a shadow jumped out at me and I turned swiftly, prepared for more of a fight.

There was a secondary security deposit box at the edge of the room. At a guess that was where all the Lien was. Maybe the adrenaline just had me jumpy, was all. I hoped I wasn't going to start seizing. That would be pretty bad right here and now.

I put my sword in the shield and put my face down in Don Corneo's. I said nothing.

"Please…" he begged from his comfy looking chair.

"Listen, my friend here likes to torture people. She likes it a lot. She even gets off on it a little. A bit like you do with honey bee costumes."

He looked over at Neo and she nodded, eyes full of mirth as she loomed over him in those heels. A wicked smile etched in her face.

He shuddered. Maybe he didn't get off on those costumes anymore. "Wait… You haven't even told me what you want…"

I was maybe letting him stew in it.

"You're going to give us all your money. All of it. Every last Lien."

"You don't understand," he pleaded. "Cash is pretty much all I have right now. I'll be destitute."

"You hear that?" I asked Neo. "Cash rich and asset poor."

She smirked up at me. I bent back down over Corneo.

"You have your body. You have your life. You want to keep them?" I pulled out my explosive and stuck it to the smaller vault. Then I slammed his head right next to it.

"Oh please. Oh please. Gods please don't."

"See I don't really need your cooperation. I don't really need you to open this little vault. I can open it and your head at the same time. I can hand you over to my friend here and she'll cut your balls off and she'll like it too. There's only one way you get clear of this mess alive."

I wasn't really going to set it off while we were locked in this airtight compartment. But I could always open the door a little and give it some space. I could maybe survive an explosion like that. Maybe. But I would be none too fresh afterward and we still needed to fight our way out of here.

"Please I'll be nothing. I'll be no one."

"Cut his fingers off."

She held his hand out against the vault wall and drew her blade from her parasol.

"Fine! Fine! I'll open it, I'll do it. Just don't hurt me. Please!"

She cut him anyways and he screamed. His thumb dropped to the floor at my feet. I held his head against the little vault while Neo worked at his hand.

I looked at his desk. It seems the Don got a fancy looking new scroll, too, after Weiss made off with his last one.

"And I want your scroll, too."

He whimpered quietly.

"I'll do it. I'll do it please no more. Please."

Suffice to say we got the safety deposit box open and made off like criminals. I let Neo kill him too, couldn't let him start blowing things up on us or calling his guards.

There were millions of Lien in the little vault. We even had to leave some behind just because we couldn't carry it all.

"A thousand Lien for you." I counted out. "And one thousand for me."

She grinned down at me while I worked. Something nostalgic in her smile. Maybe a little wistful.

I let her think what she wanted. It'd be only cruel to crush her dreams and memories.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	38. Proud Ice Queen III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

_Damn Jaune._

I thought.

_And damn myself for getting comfortable. _

It was a sad thought. One of valedictions rather than of true cursing.

_But I started to like him…_

It was a thought of denial, one born of protest.

I was saying goodbye to Ren and Nora. We cremated them and had a short ceremony. Long funerals were mostly frowned upon across Remnant for the negativity such things tended to gather.

It hurt, more than saying goodbye to my father ever had. These were my family. These were my friends and I'd never hear their voices again. Ren and Nora had no family for us to send messages too, though we would have. They had no ancestral homes to be buried at. They were orphans. All they had were Jaune and Pyrrha and they were gone now too.

I missed Nora's bubbly personality and Ren's stoicism. I missed sitting with them for meals. I missed watching them dance around the others' feelings. So obvious to the rest of us, they never had time to explore one another.

"Our time is fleeting," Ozpin officiated. "Time always seems short. Even to me." He gave an empty laugh. None of us echoed it.

He opened the cremation jar and emptied it into the wind. Jaune should have been here for it. Instead he was bringing the relic to Salem. He should be here to collect their weapons. Instead it was Ruby who held onto them during the ceremony.

Titania wasn't heavy but those weapons sure were. I didn't envy Ruby who seemed to want to carry them. Nora's hammer which Yang seemed content to hold on to for our travels was neatly folded up. She attached it to her belt and put it behind her. As the bruisers of our teams, Yang and Nora had been fairly close.

I received one half of Stormflower from Ruby. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I didn't need a gun but it felt wrong that they should never see use again.

It was wrong.

Jaune should be here to take it. He would know what to do with the weapons. Even if it was just to have them buried.

Amongst the mayhem and chaos Mistral represented Jaune had been like a rock. Sturdy and absolute. In every situation he'd known what to do. Real confidence had been in his heart rather than the false stuff he'd tried to show off freshman year. It was little wonder then, why Ruby lashed herself to him. And now it seemed Ruby was sinking and there was nothing I could do about it.

She was in love with Jaune, our problem child. As little as we knew what to do about Nora and Ren, we knew even less what to do about Jaune.

Ozpin was convinced Jaune was some kind of sleeper agent and not a full blown traitor which only seemed to make things more complicated. If he was a traitor I'd at least know how to classify him. Instead it didn't even seem to be his fault. Well it was and it wasn't. Ruby was fully in his camp but that was always going to be the case, dating or not. She believed in her friends. It was hard to find a fault in her for that.

So I didn't.

Instead I admired it. Arguably she should have been hurt the most, instead she seemed almost ready. Ready for what I wasn't sure. She was adamant that we'd run into Jaune again. It was hard to fault her instincts either. Not when they'd led her so far.

She also didn't want to be felt sorry for. I respected that, too. Lords only know that if it had been me, I'd be in pieces.

I packed Stormflower in my briefcase, carefully wrapping it in cloth. I clicked the briefcase shut over it and tried not to think about it.

"Hard to believe they're all gone." Blake leaned by the door of Yang and my room.

"JNPR is over. Felt just like that." Yang snapped her fingers. "Could have been us."

I shivered. "It basically was us. But for a chess piece at initiation."

"I don't want to think about that," Blake confessed. "RWBY is still whole."

"The girl or the team 'cause my sister hasn't handled this the best."

"Right. Our team, I suppose," Blake elaborated. "But she traveled with them, right? She was close to them all. Not even counting Jaune."

"They called it Team RNJR or JNRR," I said.

"Sounds painful."

"Like when our team was fractured," Yang said pointedly.

"Right." Blake sounded sheepish. "Except we came back together."

"Did we?" Yang asked. Her eyes red, and not just from tears. There beat a rage filled drum in her voice and it showed in her eyes.

"Well…" Blake trailed off.

"Really? You want to do this now?" I asked.

"Why not now? Should I let the cuts heal only to peel off the scab again?"

"I suppose." I granted. I didn't particularly like it, though. Our friends were barely in the ground, so to speak.

"You left us Blake. You left me. I was as partner-less as Jaune! I thought I'd never see you again. And the worst part was it was your decision. You didn't want to be around me."

"I-"

"You didn't even ask me if I'd go with you!"

I felt like an intruder. On the outside looking in as I knelt by my bed. I wasn't of course. And I could almost feel both of them expecting me to take their side. Yang's aura flared, a bright light in the room where Blake's seemed to cowl in on itself. A darkness that layered over again.

"I needed space. I needed time! Sun-"

"So what? Sun's good enough and I'm not?!"

"For your information he followed me. He didn't ask for my permission, he just came with me. I almost stabbed him over it." Blake anxiously pushed some hair behind her ear. Her human ear. "What happened to you was my fault. Adam came for me."

"Your crazy ex you never told me about? I thought we were past not telling each other things."

"I was trying to keep you safe! To protect you!"

"It didn't work!" Yang waved her prosthesis in Blake's face. "Ignorance may be bliss but it's not safe."

Point Yang. I was in her camp for that one. I was certainly tired of other people deciding what was best for me. I was way past that. It's why I supported her when she demanded that Ozpin be open with us.

"I'm sorry! I just couldn't bear the thought of you looking at me with hatred in your heart." Blake was crying. "Over this or over anything."

"Blake…" Yang protested. "I'd never do that to you. I just thought we were at a point where we'd struggle together. Even through the Whitefang stuff. Your problems are my problems. The way Jaune and my sister did. The way Ruby and Weiss are."

"I thought you'd hate me."

"I'd never hate you, Blake. I couldn't pull it off." Yang's aura looked distinctly cooler. Blake rubbed one arm with the other and wouldn't meet Yang's eyes. Couldn't.

"Is everything alright in here?" It was Ruby at the door. She already had her duffle bag in hand. Aside from that she was wearing Jaune's old hoodie. I guess she's gone through his things now that he was gone and found something she liked.

"We were just talking about when Blake left us," Yang answered.

"Ah," Ruby mumbled. "And is it…"

"We're getting somewhere," Blake said. "Thank you Ruby."

Ruby hovered at the door a moment longer before she said, "well I should…"

"Of course." Blake murmured. "Whatever you need."

I watched her go before I picked up my things. "Weiss?" Yang asked.

"You fools," I muttered. I followed Ruby. She didn't want to be excluded. It was the opposite of what she needed right now.

"They didn't mean anything by it." I caught up to Ruby and took her by the hand.

"I know."

"With everything else that's going on they just don't want to bother you with it."

"I know."

"It wasn't anything besides that."

"I know." I didn't feel anything from Ruby other than a quiet patience. I didn't get the sense that she was annoyed or flustered. In fact, her aura seemed reserved too.

"We're all just worried about you."

She nodded. "I know. I…" She was masking and I hated to see it. I missed her energy. Her aura barely extended beyond her skin. If I wasn't touching her I doubt I'd have been able to feel it. It was a silenced, withdrawn thing.

"Are you feeling better today?" I asked.

"Not really I'm -um…" she trailed off.

"You just miss them. I know," I breathed.

She nodded. "We all do."

"But you feel so much more than most. Don't be afraid to talk to me. Ever. Please," I begged.

She wiped her hand across her face and took some silvery tears. "Everyone's treating me like I'm made of glass. And I am… and I am, but…"

I nodded and waited for her to get a head on her emotions.

"I'm not any more than anyone else should be." She finished at length. "And they're fighting."

"Yang felt like she had to," I said.

"Maybe she did. She's a fighter. She…" Ruby trailed off again and wiped some more of her tears away. "I want to go to sleep. I just want to sleep this away." She mumbled miserably.

I kissed her forehead. The kiss was not quick but held no passion.

"That's depression."

"Is it?" She asked.

"Yes. Little energy. It can be a symptom."

"I guess if you look at it like a sickness…"

"It is a sickness."

"That's very Weiss of you." She gave me a giggle and I felt a tidal wave of relief. The noise was quiet and simple.

"Well thank you." I managed. She traced her hand over the skin of one of my arms and I shivered.

"You've got goosebumps," she murmured.

"Well-I…" I cleared my throat and mastered myself. "Have you finished packing?"

She nodded. "I'm all set."

"Then we're just waiting on Yang and Blake now."

"They'll be ready before it's time to leave." She mumbled again. "Weiss, about the plan..."

"Me going on ahead, you mean."

"Yeah. I really don't like it."

"Me neither," I whispered. "But it might be the only way to get through to Ironwood. And it's only assuming Ozpin can't pass a message on to him using code."

"But if communication was up and running, they could do it from here. You'll be the message bearer Weiss. And I don't want to be split up from you."

"I know. I know. I'll miss you too Ruby."

"I wish Jaune were here," she confessed. "He'd come up with a plan."

"I'm sure you do. I bet he would, too. He was cunning like that."

"Is. He's not dead."

"Of course, I only meant…"

"I know," She muttered again. I found myself touching her face. The tips of my fingers grazing her cheeks and I watched in a sort of sick fascination as she leaned into the touch. Eyes closed. "I'm worried about you, Weiss."

"I'll be with the greatest military force on Remnant."

"That doesn't make you safe."

"What does safety even mean? Salem has a long reach. We thought Jaune was safe. I promise I'll be as safe as I can be." She reached up and pressed my hand against her face at that.

"And you'll stay away from your father."

"And… yes. I'll avoid him at all costs."

"Your sister… is she nice to you?" Ruby asked. "I only saw a little back at Beacon. I wasn't sure what to make of it."

A difficult question. Winter was always distant but that didn't put her in the same category as my father or brother. Or even my mother.

"Yes, I think so."

"Stay with her, then."

"What if Ironwood only lets Oscar through, though?" I let an unbidden fear out into the wild. I wanted it to be dissuaded. "What if he keeps you all back?"

"He won't. He works with Qrow too. At which point…"

"Right. That makes sense." I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Plus if you talk about knowing about the relics..." She sighed into my touch. She let out a little humming sound and smiled for what felt like the first time in years, though it had only been days. "Everything will be okay."

I nodded. "Everything will be fine."

"Ladies." Qrow came in on mechanical legs. "I'm not interrupting something am I?" His gait was too smooth, his strides too even. It belied his mechanical nature.

He seemed to be genuinely asking and I took a step away from Ruby as though caught in some act. "We were just…" I trailed off.

"We were just talking about the mission," Ruby said.

"Ah the mission." It was Oscar. Or maybe Ozpin. Probably Ozpin. "There's always more to discuss, and if I may, more to discuss about Jaune."

"He has the relic," Ruby went on.

"That he does. And he is a cunning mind second to none. I'm sure, given enough time, he will learn to use the relic. Which, I confess, is a little terrifying. And he only seemed to be growing stronger from my perspective."

"When he was at Beacon he was so weak, by the time he turned he was the strongest of us. And you're right, it was like with each day he was getting better," I muttered. "Limit Breaker… it was aptly named. It seemed like he was pushing himself every day."

"Yes. I'm afraid of what he will be in Salem's hands. You knew him best Ruby. I'd like a moment of your time to talk it over with you."

"The kid's smart but his options are limited. We weren't sure what his next move will be. Whether we should report him to the police or not." Qrow said.

"I'm… I'm not sure. I never thought he'd turn on us. Turn on me."

"Well, now that he did, we need to come up with a plan." Qrow grumbled. He took a swig of his flask. "Whether that's keeping a watch out for him ourselves or reporting him."

"Yes… the relic may already be in Salem's hands. You may be happy to hear the Malachite reported seeing him, acting and walking about. She gave up this information freely to us. She seemed afraid of him."

Ruby did seem happy to hear that. "Then we've confirmed he's alive? And Malachite is watching out for him?"

"Only smart of her. The kid was strong, and fast." He muttered as an afterthought.

"Is. You all keep talking about him in the past tense." Ruby said with some heat.

"Of course, Ms. Rose. You still believe in his innocence, then?"

"You were the one who came up with the theory of him being a sleeper agent, weren't you?"

"Only as a plausible. It may be that he saw now with the relic as the opportune moment to strike at us." Ozpin said. "We had an interesting conversation before he left. On why I let him into my school. He claimed that I only let him in because I thought he was Salem's agent. It could merely have been mind games, but it was enough to make me doubt that he was acting of his own volition when he took the relic. His possible status as a victim in all this remains only that, a possibility. More importantly, however, if he were a sleeper agent that still makes him a threat to us. He is still allied against us."

"Jaune'll lay low. If he doesn't want us to find him then we won't. He's too smart for that," Ruby managed. I rubbed her back with one hand. Actually talking and being involved seemed to be doing her some real good. Who was I to shut it down? This was more energy than I'd seen from her in days.

"Then the relic is truly lost to us. We put out feelers just in case but…" Ozpin shrugged. "We'll have to manage to keep the remaining relics out of her hands. And an ear to the ground where Jaune is concerned. In the longest term, however, the relic of knowledge is perhaps the most dangerous relic she could have acquired first. And Jaune is very dangerous. As dangerous as any of Salem's other agents."

Ruby's fists tightened by her sides.

"A question, Ms. Rose?"

"I have questions for Jaune, not for you."

"My apologies, then."

"You need to face the facts kido. He killed two of his so-called friends."

"Qrow, now may not be the time…" Ozpin began.

"What is it you think you know about him that I don't?" Ruby demanded. "Why wasn't the opportune moment all the times we were alone together?"

"That's easy. He didn't have his hands on a relic, then." Qrow grunted. He seemed as angry as Ruby was. That he didn't catch Jaune before. That he was weaker now than he used to be.

Ruby bristled at her uncle. Fists clenching and unclenching by her sides.

"You think he saw he shot and just took it?" I asked. "That's what you think of him?"

"It's as I said, a plausibility. And being forgiving on him for it will do us no favors." Ozpin said. "Jaune is brutal."

"Jaune is kind!" Ruby almost shouted. "He is sweet!"

"You have another explanation for what happened then?" Ozpin asked.

"We don't. Not yet." I said. I was backing Ruby. Nobody deserved it quite like my partner did. She would have my back. She had Jaune's back even when the odds seemed stacked against him.

"Then I'm afraid we will have to operate as though he is our enemy. We can't afford the risk."

"I'll show you. I'll find what I need to to prove you wrong!"

"Ms. Rose I very much hope that you do."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	39. Greens I

**Back to Jaune we go. **

**If you experience positive psychotic symptoms don't ever use marijuana. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"You think this will help?" I held the marijuana cigarette out in front of me and picked at a bug in my ear.

Greens for sure weren't likely to help with the paranoid thoughts, a goddess had her fingers in my mind, for real, or the suicidal thoughts, besides. But it just might take the edge off the bugs or the shadows.

Neo took it back from me and lit it. She took a long pull as though to say, 'see, safe.'

I took it back and inhaled the smoke in my lungs, it was still burning from where she lit it, and took a drag. Almost immediately the bugs in my face eased. They weren't gone per se. They were muted. I could still feel them crawling around behind my eyes and in the tips of my extremities.

I coughed.

"Oh shit." I exhaled. "That's good." I chomped on the cigar and Neo beamed. "I'm going to need a box of these, just to keep it at bay." I'd brought up some of my hallucinations and Neo had picked this up for me.

She was looking up at me expectantly.

"Thank you, Neo."

She grinned up at me even though I was sitting on the bed and she was standing. We were in a different dingy motel than the one in which we'd tortured Nickel.

The greens were good. I inhaled them and leaned back on the bed. If Neo wanted to kill me this would be the best time to do it. Instead she plopped up on the bed beside me. "Well, I'm hooked." A shadow jumped out at me from the corner of my eye and I just didn't care. I was so relaxed.

I factory reset the Don's scroll. It wasn't quite as good as the military grade one I'd had before, but as far as civilian ones went it was top of the line.

"I need to go to this Merlot's lab. Cinder's boss, Salem, has some way of controlling me. All my psychotic symptoms started then. I need to learn about it if I want to fight it. You're welcome to come with. Cinder probably won't be there, but it's on the road to her for me. I have to go."

I brushed my new diamond studs. I'd gone all in on my new identity, Cloud, Cloud Strife. My hair was done up spikey, and I had a half cape around my waist. I still had Pyrrha's cape around my bicep on one arm but on the other I had a single long sleeve, on my pauldron side. The dark blues and blacks of my new clothes contrasted with the bronze of my armor nicely. My half cape billowed around my legs when I walked and my blonde hair shifted in any breeze. I still had a pair of long gloves on beneath my gauntlets. They ran elbow length.

I'd gotten my sword repaired, too. The warp wasn't bad to take out and I was only without the blade for a couple of hours yesterday. I'd just waited outside the smithy while they worked. What was I supposed to do and where was I going to go without my sword? Nowhere fast. And I wasn't Ruby to repair it myself. I might have been able to buff it out with a whetstone, but why take the risk when my pockets were overflowing with cash?

My weapons would still give me away, so would my face, but I'd done what I could in terms of disguising myself. Unless my friends saw me face to face or weapon to weapon they wouldn't be able to find me.

Neo made a stabbing gesture with her right hand.

"There will be people to kill and torture. At least one person. Probably. If not there will always be more in Atlas."

She made a show of considering it, one finger on her cheek. I knew how lonely she was, though. Plus I was sure she liked taking orders. It was weird but then not really. She liked having a boss. And just so long as she had people to maim, she was happy. I think she was happier working with me than she had been in a long time.

What? A girl's gotta heist.

It was a coin flip where Cinder was heading next, Atlas or Vacuo. So I'd flipped for it. It came up Atlas. I'd start digging around there in Solitas after I was done with Merlot thing. Depending, of course, on what I learned from his lab. It was closer anyways. And it maintained my future availability of options by being closest to Vacuo over here and Vale. It was closest to all three of the other kingdoms, really, depending on how you looked at it. And the closed borders meant little to me if I had Neo with me.

I roached the joint and stared at the slightly spinning ceiling. The softly rotating fan was a pleasure to watch as I laid back. I rubbed at my chest, moving my hand in light circles over the deep scars there.

I missed Ruby and her soft touch in those moments.

Neo nodded at length. A single small gesture I felt through the bed. I sat up and held out a hand for her to shake on it. She did, a wide glittering grin on her face. Her eyes swapped colors at that.

She was wearing new clothes, too. She had a cape with some collar straps and her collar was done around inside out near her breasts. The fancy shirt ended at her midriff before a pair of nice white pants. She wore a pair of much shorter heels than before beneath that. She had a set of long white gloves on as well, much like myself.

"We'll take a train to the South to this city, Shumi." I pointed out on a map with my scroll, "From there we'll ride on horseback to Merlot's laboratory, here near a place called Wutai. A few weeks max. Then we'll be back on the hunt for Cinder. Who'll probably go to Atlas. She has unfinished business with Ironwood anyway."

She nodded along acceptingly. She pointed at where I'd thrown out the cigarette.

"Yep. We'll need a ration of those. They really help. I don't suppose you know where to find more?"

She gave me a coy nod. Hiding a smile behind her hands.

"Fantastic."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

She did indeed know where to find more.

A beefy guard waited outside a small house on the outskirts of Mistral. He was wider than me at the shoulders and had a few inches on me. At a glance I didn't feel the low hum of aura coming off of hin though. He could be just withdrawn, at any rate.

Neapolitan and I walked up together. He gave us both a once over and we stood in silence. Then some other folks walked out of the house and he motioned to let us in. Controlling how many people were inside at any given time. Smart.

He held up a hand. "Your weapons," He had a slight accent. Atlesian, not unlike Weiss's but deeper and richer. "Leave them out here."

I pulled my harness off my back. Staring him straight in the eye the whole time. I didn't need Limit to kill him. I put them on a rack behind the gentleman and he stepped aside of the entrance.

Neo was let inside without any hassle, giving me a superior smirk as she twisted her umbrella in the rain. "Sure, rub it in."

She did. And even if she didn't, being without Crocea Mors made me uncomfortable. I was glad she was armed, if nothing else. Somebody to watch my back in a run down place like this was nice. And I always had Limit, just a short charge away.

We walked in on a place lined with jars and labels on them. Inside were greens of all sorts of names. Lemon Drop Haze. Blueberry Blitz. Lilac Diesel. They were all arranged on neat little rows on high shelves.

"Well I've got to hand it to you Neo…"

I was whistled at by a lanky dude in a T-shirt.

I was coming from a place of ignorance and I couldn't exactly ask Neo how the place worked.

"You been in here before?"

"No sir." I answered with a smile. "How much am I allowed to buy." Not what sizes did they come in, not anything else. What was the maximum amount of drugs I was allowed to leave with? They must have a limit to prevent resale. A closely monitored tight ship like this.

"Two ounces." That didn't seem like much. "And you gotta pay in cash, that is if no one told you."

"Not a problem. What would the-uh…" I gestured at him.

"Budtender," the Budtender said.

"Right. What would the Budtender recommend."

"For what? You wanna get high or you wanna relax?"

"Something to relax me," I told him.

"You want an indica, then. A bit mellower and a bit richer in the CBD."

He picked across the shelves. Staying away from things that had names like 'blitz,' or 'shard,' or 'rush.' He strayed towards the mellower sounding ones and distinctly avoided one which had 'panic' in its name.

"Lemon drop haze." He put his hand on one. "And...sunshine sherbet." He put his hand on another jar.

"Sounds good. An ounce of both, please."

He named a steep price. A couple hundred Lien. I whistled lowly. But the stuff Neo had given me was already wearing thin. The bugs were starting to come back and I needed relief. I could hear a low whispering too. That needed to stop. Fast, if possible.

I paid him in the cash requested without too much hesitation. The only other place I'd see real relief would be antipsychotic drugs. I didn't have the time to get a psychiatrist and as a huntsman I'd be forcibly relieved of my gear for potentially months.

PTSD was common amongst hunters and they couldn't have crazy ones running around. There were procedures in place for this that I was specifically trying to avoid. I just didn't have the time to get set up with something like that.

"You gonna need pipe-ware?" He asked.

I looked down at Neo. She rolled her pink and brown eyes and nodded. I could feel her aura against mine. Something cool with undercurrents underneath. An edge of something cruel.

"Yeah I'll need a pipe."

"They never just stop at one," he said with a smirk. Like he was sharing a closely held secret with me.

"One'll be good for now," I instead insisted.

"It'll be thirty extra for a pipe and if you want a grinder that'll be even more."

It sounded like a good idea so I took him up on it.

I paid him anyways, knowing he was gouging me. It didn't matter a whole lot to me at the moment anyways. He handed over two tins, a pipe and a grinder.

"Come back soon." He called at my shoulder. I stuffed the tins and paraphernalia into my pockets.

I took my weapon back from the man outside and gave it a once over. My serrated combat-camping knife, sword and shield all looked fine, just as I left them.

"Let's get out of this fucking town." I told Neo. "I'm done with this city."

I freshly ground up some greens while we were walking and put it in my new pipe. I took a long drag, like it was the first breath of fresh air I'd gotten in months.

She skipped to keep up with me. Making it look natural.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

_"You assume there's nothing I can do to you, child. No torment I can bring upon you. You are mistaken."_

_I was hit with the sensation of making up but I couldn't turn my head. I rose from the train-car seat. _

_-then I was abruptly back in the train-car seat alone for all the world with the sensation of waking up again. _

_She hit me with that sensation. That feeling of waking up five more times and over what felt like subjective hours. My face crawled with bugs and I wanted to scream. I felt like I was falling for hours and hours. _

-I jerked awake. There was Neo across from me in the train-car. I took a moment to get my bearings. It had been torturous. The sensation of waking up over and over again.

I breathed hard and Neo looked over at me, something like concern etched in her face.

"She's getting better at it," I said. "She's getting better at tormenting me. Cinder's boss."

I looked out the train-car window and watched the scenery pass us by. I watched a couple a few aisle's down. The man jumped and slapped his body like- well like he'd seen a bug on him. I was all too familiar with the sensation. The feeling of insects crawling across my skin and things jumping out at me from the corner of the eye. I recognized it.

I looked across from me and saw Neo's eyes narrowed in concentration. Her smile was wide in sheer delight.

"Neo," I whispered. "Neo!"

She looked at me and the man stopped his jumping-jacks. Her focus wanted on whatever illusion she had crafted. Pink and brown shifted in her hair as she changed focus.

"For gods' sake you're like a child. I'll get you people to torture for real. Knock it off."

She gave me a brooding look but nodded.

"Play some games on your scroll. For goodness sake. Don't torture just to torture. Do it with purpose."

She made an faux-angry face at me.

"Yeah I'm mad. Stop it. When we find Merlot you get to do all the torturing, sound fair? Even though he's my dad or whatever."

She gave me an odd look at that.

"I think… I think I was born in a tank. There are images of water. Muffled people talking. I think I was born pretty much full grown with whatever they had done to me already done to me."

"I don't know what they did to me. I don't know what I am. But when we find Merlot you get to be first in line for hurting him."

"They said he does experiments on Grimm, that might mean… it might mean that I'm part Grimm. That means I'm a monster. And you get to go first against the guy who did that to me. Sound even? We square?"

She didn't nod or give me any gesture. She just sat in her typical silence.

"Look… whatever. Just stop fucking with people who don't deserve it. If you're going to work for me then you only get to torment the people I say so. We clear?"

She still made no gesture.

"I said 'are we clear?'"

She gave me one firm nod. Her eyes were wary in part. Like she was anxious of making a deal she didn't want to keep. Like I was some fae of myth contracting her into bondage.

"Good. I promise it won't be all bad. And when we get to Atlas we'll have to make a name for ourselves. Make people scared of us. It's just an intermission on the torture and heists. They're not over."

Maybe I was a little antsy too. I wanted another pull of greens. The bugs were starting to become a bit of menace. And I couldn't exactly take a hit while in the slightly crowded train.

And Hell, I was bored, too.

"Plus there might be bandits out here. You can do whatever you want to them, I don't give a fuck."

"Heard there was a big tribe of bandits too. The Branwens you heard of them? Well I especially don't care what happens to them. Go nuts."

"With my luck I'm sure something will come up anyways. You'll get your kicks. Have I steered you wrong yet? That's what I thought. And I let you kill the Don even though I kinda wanted to. He threatened some disgusting stuff on my friends. I really wanted to snap his neck. Instead I let you cut him. That was grand, wasn't it?"

"So when I say you'll get your kicks in you better believe me. We just have to be patient for a bit. Play things smart and close to the chest."

"Otherwise Salem will get us," I exhaled. "Cinder and Salem both will get the two of us with impunity."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	40. Greens II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I tapped the ash of my pipe in an alley. The glass made a soft _tong _sound as I tapped it against the brick. Then I stepped out with a boot and quashed the still-burning greens.

I already felt like a pro with it.

My head clear of distractions like bugs or the sound of Mother's voice I could finally get to work. The slight spinning the greens caused was not unlike alcohol but it was minor. I felt like I could focus through it. I even felt like I could drive, or ride as the case may be.

Gods it was good to be off that stuffy train. There were 'no smoking' signs everywhere and fire alarms in every bathroom. (I'd maybe checked a couple.)

"Well Neo, let's buy some horses."

She held up one finger.

"One? One horse? For the both of us?"

She nodded.

"So what? You'll just ride bitch on mine?"

She frowned at my phrasing but still nodded again.

"Huh. And feminism marches on."

She kicked me in the shin. I deserved it too so I managed a muted, "ow. Alright. Alright. Fair cop."

I rubbed at one of my piercings, fondling the earlobe around the metallic diamond stud.

"You know I could probably teach you how to ride. It's easy enough for someone like me to figure out so you could probably do it."

She shook her head. Probably thinking something like 'why would I do that when I have you to ride me around?' To which I'd say, 'yeah, fair enough.'

I found a merchant and paid him. It came out to a few thousand Lien but it was no skin off my back. Just one aura-driven horse and we were good to go.

I saddled up. Putting my bag of loose possessions over the horse's back (spare clothes, toiletries, the bare necessities) along with Neo's own duffle. Then I mounted. The horse grunted slightly under the suddenly added weight of all my weapons and armor and me. I was something like two-hundred and thirty pounds by myself. Probably a little more.

I reached down to Neo. She looked away as I easily swung her onto the horse's back. The horse hardly stirred under the addition, she was smaller than Ruby or Weiss. Neo popped her pink parasol to shield us both from the Anima sun.

She rode side-saddle. And managed to look ever so lady-like on the horse's back but I knew the truth. I turned my head back to face forward. This thing was no lady. She was as much a beast as the horse we rode on.

Like that we were off, hooves beating a steady rhythmic _clip-clop_ down a beaten trail. It had the marks of being a real road for cars with four wheels.

"You don't do tactile stuff do you? Just auditory and visual illusions right?"

I felt her nod her head against my back.

"And you haven't been hazing me, have you?" It would be convenient if all my hallucinations were caused by Neo messing with me. Convenient. Not likely or comforting or anything like that.

She shook her head.

"Then I think I'm a little fucked up."

She snorted a little, still managing to be lady-like still. It reminded me a little of Weiss.

"I didn't use to be like this. Mother got to me. Salem, that is. She haunts me like an evil spectre from the end of time. I'm not sure if you believe me about her but she's bad news. Has all kinds of magic besides being old as hell and probably basically unkillable."

She snorted again. I felt her wipe her pink and brown hair back. It brushed against my sleeveless arm. It tingled against my free skin there.

"That's what I'm saying. She's fucking bullshit. I didn't really believe it myself until I ran into her, or her shadow at least. It was almost enough to unmake me, that alone. She made me kill two of my friends. Made me. Like I was a puppet."

She just listened that time. She put an arm around me to hold on as we rode out of Shumi and on to Wutai. It was the first real touch another person had given me since everything went down.

Since I'd killed Ren and Nora.

Since I'd tried to kill myself.

It was oddly reassuring even if it was light and meaningless. Gentle against my arm. Just enough to hold on from where she sat in our double saddle.

I was choking something back as she did and got settled in a little more. I could feel her aura. The cruel cold a mellow comfort to my own heat. Like I was burning up and hadn't noticed it. Like I had a fever and didn't know.

"That's why I have to go and find Merlot. Salem could make me kill you too, I'm not sure what will make me snap next. That would be bad, for both of us."

She tensed up a little at that. I wasn't sure she took it as a threat but it kinda was. Salem's reach was long and I wasn't sure what we'd find at the laboratory.

"Not right now. Captain of my own ship at the moment. Just… be careful around me. Be ready once we get to the lab. The report was all about modified Grimm. Not like me, maybe, depending on what the fuck I am. Salem mentioned that I do indeed have sisters. How could I forget that? Oh my gods she has my fucking sisters."

I stewed in that. Listening to the rhythmic beat of the horse.

"Depending on how false my memories are. Most of them are fake. Inconsistent when I really look at them. I have to save them, though. And myself of course. I won't get anywhere as her puppet. All the more reason to get to the lab and find Merlot."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I set up the tent and tied the horse to a tree. Setting out the horse the graze. That was what was great about horses. It was a grass fed engine. They could go anywhere there was grass with excellent mobility. That was why they were a staple of mankind.

I didn't ask Neo for anything as I set up the camp. Which was fine. She sat on a fence looking at the road forlornly. Like she'd made a deal she wished she could go back on.

My legs were cramped from riding and I was sure hers were stiff, too.

"Let's fight." I said, standing up straight from the tent. I took a hit off my pipe at the same time and exhaled.

She gave me an odd look.

"What? Cinder is stronger than both of us. You think you'll reach her level by not sparring? By not practicing?"

She hopped off the fence and stalked towards me. She rubbed her chest as she looked at me.

"I'll take it easier on you than before but we really can't afford to get out of practice. We'll be out here for a week or so. That's two, back and forth to really get to know each other. Plus if we'll be working together it will help if we know the others' style."

She pulled her dolon on me and pranced closer with that otherworldly grace people who'd had their aura unlocked for a long time possessed.

"What's your weapon's name, by the way?"

She made a shushing gesture, a finger to her pink lips. A confident grin on her face.

"Uh, okay then."

She shook her head and pointed at her weapon.

"Oh the weapon's name is Shush."

She shook her head.

"Quiet? Silence?"

She pulled out her scroll and typed like she did when I was having trouble guessing. She didn't seem to use any real sign language and sometimes it was nearly impossible to determine what she meant. It was 'Hush' typed on the screen on a note word processor.

"So close! Well then it certainly suits you, Hush."

She rolled her eyes, exasperated that she'd had to pull her scroll.

I tapped out the ash from my pipe on a tree and squashed it. I put the pipe away in a bouch on my belt beside the relic. I wasn't sure how the damn thing worked and I hadn't really messed with it. I was willing to bet if I took the top off the lamp it would do something but I wasn't sure what it would do or even what for.

Sure something related to knowledge but that wasn't exactly a narrow topic. All of knowledge that is.

I still felt like my head was clear enough to fight despite the greens. I drew the longsword from my back. I held it with both hands on the long handle.

I rested my left beneath the right and breathed in. I activated my semblance with a little sigh. I felt good. I felt right.

Neo approached me and poked at the rising wisps of light.

"My semblance? It's called Limit Breaker. It makes me stronger and faster and there's a charge I can spend on an attack or movement."

She counted down with her fingers at a steady pace.

"How long does it last?"

Neo nodded.

"I'm not really sure. It used to only be fifteen seconds or so. Fifteen seconds to spend it or use the mobility and strength buffs. Now I can hold onto the charge for longer. Minutes, maybe." Fifteen seconds was short as fuck but minutes were long as Hell in a real fight.

It used to be a lot of pressure but now I had time to think and to trap my opponents with the superior speed and resilience.

"You ready?" I asked.

She shook her head, hiding a smile and I realized she was waiting for my semblance to evaporate away.

"Hey," I protested. "If you wanted to go without it you could have just said something."

She frowned at me. I threw the Limit away in the form of a Bladebeam against a tree. It blended away against the bark, throwing out chips of wood and with a groan the tree fell.

"Fine. Alright? You ready?"

She grinned and vanished.

I stood still and listened. I watched carefully but couldn't see any indication of her movement. She reappeared on top of me. Bringing the sword-stick down on me, trying to breach my collar bone in what I was figuring was a favorite move of hers.

I had to raise Crocea Mors upwards to deflect the blow to the side. I tried to riposte but by the time I brought the weapon around and down in a counter attack she disappeared.

She reappeared behind me and kicked my right leg in the back of the knee. Now I don't care how strong you are and firm your balance is. You get kicked like that, you're dropping to at least one knee.

I did. I swept the sword around my body to ward her off and get back to my feet. As I tried to rise she came at me from the left and I struggled to bring the blade around in time to block the smaller, more lithe cane sword. I leaned on my blade like a knight as I rose to my feet.

I swiped at her and nicked her and sent her tumbling. She growled at me. She cartwheeled back to her feet and vanished.

She stabbed me in the chest, tearing out chunks of my aura as she did. I reached out with my left hand and grabbed her. Her eyes widened in surprise before I bounced her off the ground and tried to reach her by dancing my blade down in a large forward swipe.

I caught her and comboed her forward in four more strikes.

Once she was out of tumble she vanished and kicked me in the chest with both heels. I reeled backwards. She stabbed me from the right. Then reappeared on the left, further away from my sword.

I was sort of intentionally handicapping myself without the shield. I traded mobility for defense and I stepped back with her and tried to block, both hands on my long red hilt.

I caught her across the stomach with a touche and pushed her back with a tiny grimace from her. It activated my charge and I flew towards her. I jumped and brought the sword vertically around my body to deliver a punishing falling upwards swinging aerieal that launched her up in the air at a perfect middle height.

She broke the combo by teleporting in front of me. She jabbed at me with the umbrella and expanded it right in my face, pushing my sword to the side as a matter of course. She then flickered towards my throat with the thin blade. It caught me and I tried to grab her but my grab was slow and she twisted back away with a side flip.

I flew at her, holding my semblance, still. She dodged in place, leaning to the side. She jabbed at my face with her blade and it caught my aura and left a shallow cut on my cheek.

I grunted and in a flash spent my semblance I climbed her up in a massive upwards swing. The Limit Break attack made her aura flash and flicker in a tide of bright pink.

She rolled away from me. She slammed one arm in the dirt and vanished again. She reappeared with her legs around my head and used the momentum to try and slam me into a tree.

I jumped then backflipped off the tree instead of being rammed into it.

She still managed to bring me to the ground and tried to put me in an arm bar at the same time she stabbed down with her cane-sword. I dropped my blade and with pure main strength peeled her off of my arm and tossed her.

She landed neatly on her feet. Her eyes switched colors as she blinked at me.

She reappeared before me and stomped on my foot. I leaned forward unconsciously and she hooked me with her umbrella and used my momentum to throw me to the ground. I frontflipped in place to counter and whipped my sword around and knocked her off her feet.

She attacked me with an illusion. Making me see a flash of white before she went low and stabbed at me. I blindly swung downwards and she slid on her knees beneath the cut and stabbed up at my thigh. She pierced my aura and when I swung at her she vanished and shattered like a glass pane.

Our weapons clashed as I chased after her and she backed up. Three times they met with solid _clanging_ noises as we did. Her blade was fast and it whipped through the air as I chased her.

I kicked out and our legs met. She rolled over it and kneed me in the face. I tried to grab her but she vanished.

I took a guess at where she would reappear and Cross-Slashed her. It was less serious without the broadsword. Even still, I tried to be light about it but she bounced off the ground and lay still.

"How you holding up?"

She frowned and tried to vanish but collapsed.

"Don't push yourself too hard, now. It's just training. To get better."

She glowered at me.

"Why don't we call it there. No reason to over extend until one of us is without aura. How does dinner sound, besides?"

My heart was racing and I could feel the high from my greens up top, really in my head.

She gave me a suspicious look.

"Don't worry. I'll cook."

She giggled a little. I walked over and pulled her to her feet. I rested my sword against my shoulder before I sheathed it.

"Hey I can cook."

She snorted as though to say 'sure you can.'

"I can. You just watch. I'll whip something up. I mean it won't be five stars but it'll be edible." Eggs and rice? Eggs and rice.

I pulled out my pipe. "You want some?"

She sat and shook her head. She was giving me a hard to read, soft smile.

"Suit yourself. I'll get us a fire going and everything will be fine. It'll even be delicious, you'll see."

I wasn't Ren but I could put something together. Ren… nope bad thought. Didn't like that. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to eat a breakfast burrito ever again.

_He'd forgive you, Jaune. He would. _

I reminded myself.

_It was Salem. It was all her. _

In the end, we sat back and ate in companionable silence.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	41. Lockhart

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Yang POV)

We were sitting in the train-car on the Argus Unlimited together. All of team RWBY reunited again.

My little sis was wearing Jaune's old hoodie over her usual clothes. It was a little distracting.

I really wasn't sure how to feel about that because on one hand I'd been kinda right about Jaune. On the other hand I'd been kinda right about Jaune.

I was right to try and keep him away from my sister. My instincts had been confirmed. But it broke my little sister's heart to have him as a traitor.

She'd been wearing it for two days. Like a flag of warning on where she stood on the subject. She firmly believed that Jaune was somehow a victim in all this. I… I was less convinced. I knew Blake was too. I mean the way he snuck into Beacon counted for something in all this.

I wasn't sure quite what all it counted for but it counted for something.

Weiss, meanwhile, believed in Ruby. And by extension she must believe in Jaune. I wouldn't have thought it from the Ice Queen but there she was standing beside Ruby. Metaphorically, of course. We were all sitting.

And I wasn't sure what to say. What could I say? What would get through to my sister at this moment?

There was nothing. She believed in Jaune despite everything. The wounds on Nora and Ren's bodies. The missing relic. How he ran.

All of it.

She believed in Jaune through all of that.

And besides, how could I really fault it? It was that same thing which allowed her to believe in me when I'd faltered in my course to the mission. It was that same sort of quiet patience that believed in him now that was once supporting me.

"Ruby… you need to wash that. It's starting to smell," I managed.

"It still smells a little like Jaune, though," she protested weakly. "If I wash it… it'll stop and I'll have nothing left to remind me of him."

"Ruby you'll find other things." Weiss supported me, her voice gentle. "And the hoodie won't be gone."

"His smell will be, though." She buried her nose under the collar. Her voice came out muffled.

"Ruby it's unhygienic," Blake said. "You have to give this up."

"But-but-"

"Come on. Take it off and give it to me," Weiss said. "We'll just be putting it away for now."

Ruby whined but took it off. Progress of a kind was good.

Ruby managed to look even more depressed without the enormous hoodie on her. Somehow. She managed to look cold.

Weiss stood up with the hoodie and deposited it in her case. She carefully folded it and set it with the bunny face up. From there she _clacked_ the case shut.

"Ruby you have to know obsessing over him isn't a healthy coping mechanism." Blake warned. "Look where obsession always got me."

"That's different. You were obsessing over the White Fang. Jaune's a friend."

"I know you still believe that Ruby but-"

"But what? You weren't there either with Tyrian. You didn't see him put his life on the line for me like it was nothing. He would have died for me like his own life meant nothing to him."

"But he took off with the relic," I said.

"What if he didn't. What if he had to run."

"Ruby you're just coming up with scenarios now to break your own heart. He's gone." I went on. "You're ruminating. And it's not healthy."

"We're not trying to attack you, Ruby. We just want what's best for you," Blake said.

"You believe me about him," Ruby mumbled. "Don't you Weiss?"

"I- I didn't think it was in his nature to turn on us." Weiss said when we all turned to look at her. "But the evidence against him is compelling. I saw the wounds on Ren and Nora's bodies."

Ruby let out a low whine.

"But I believe you Ruby. If you said he's a victim in this, I'll believe you."

"Weiss…" Blake trailed off in frustration.

"Come on." I said. "You saw how violent he was."

"He was no more violent than the situation called for," Weiss returned easily. "The rest of the time, in training, he took it so easy on us. You must have seen how laid back he was."

"It's hard to believe you guys." Blake intruded. "The way you all talk about him as a great fighter. It's hard to match up with my image of him from Beacon."

"He wasn't the same person," Ruby mumbled. "He changed so much and he… he did it all with me in his heart. Do you know what that's like? To watch that happen?"

"I do." Blake said. "With Adam it was slow. And everything he did was for the White Fang and me but soon… soon he was killing people. Soon he had destroyed himself and my love for him. I do know what it's like Ruby. To watch somebody change like that. The only difference is instead of him running, I did."

"My Jaune isn't like your Adam," Ruby protested.

"No?" Blake asked. "From where I stand they seem pretty similar. Even their semblances from what you told me. Adam's has a charge to it too. One that he spends on a massive final attack. Wasn't Jaune's Limit Breaker like that?"

"A little. I mean right?" I asked Weiss and Ruby.

"And it started out small. He killed one person here or there because 'the situation called for it.' Then he was killing because it pleased him. Wasn't Jaune just the same way, just before the end?"

Weiss and Ruby said nothing. Ruby looked away and Weiss reached out and took her hand and rubbed it gently. "We never got to talk much before… before it happened." Ruby mumbled.

I sighed. That was my fault. She'd felt like she'd had to hide what she felt from me. It was my fault Ruby and Jaune didn't get to talk as much as she would have wanted. And maybe that would have changed things. That was on me. It was my bad. My little sister couldn't trust me with the truth.

"But he couldn't have been a traitor the whole time. What about Pyrrha? What about when Tyrian attacked me? It meant putting his life on the line when he should have turned."

"Adam protected me too. He would have killed and died for me once," Blake said. "People change. Maybe Jaune just snapped. Maybe Salem made him an offer and he just took it up. It happened to Lionheart."

"But Ren and Nora were his family..."

"And he still killed them. Ruby…" I sighed again.

"At the end of the day, whatever reason he had for doing it, he killed Ren and Nora. And they were fighting back too, Leonardo's office was littered with evidence of it. Nora's hammer, Ren's bullets, all of it." Blake continued. "It wasn't sneaky. It wasn't fast. He looked them in the eye as he did it."

"Then he left. With the relic." I finished.

"Ruby I know it's hard. Believe me. I know what you're going through. I swear. I went through it too with Adam."

"Jaune isn't a monster."

"And Adam didn't used to be. Do you all really think I would have loved somebody who was as monstrous as Adam is now? People can change and not always for the better, Ruby."

"It hurts more your way."

"Maybe," Blake said. "But it's more true that way. Jaune was a killer."

"Is." Weiss said quietly. "Ruby's right, you all do talk about him in the past tense. He's out there somewhere right now."

"Probably on his way to Salem, relic in tow. I know it's hard Ruby. Hell, Adam is even older than me. Like Jaune is for you. And all of it from what you've told me is so similar it's scary."

"Jaune was so nice to us," Weiss muttered. "He looked after all of us."

"Adam used to feel that way about all Faunus." Blake countered. "About the White Fang. Until…"

"Until he didn't." I said. "Tell us more about Adam's semblance."

"He would stand still and charge it," Blake began. Ruby whined again. "I take it Jaune's was the same way. Anyways he'd stand still until he had the energy to unleash a devastating attack. You don't want to be caught up by him when he unleashed that energy. Yang knows." I flexed my arm. "He could also absorb other energy into his weapon and release it."

"Jaune's was a lot like that. He'd charge by standing still, forcing you to approach him." Blake nodded along with my words.

"Then it would make him change states. He'd enter a higher plane where he'd be both faster and stronger and he could spend the charge on an attack or movement option." I went on. "It was scary to fight against it, it made him better in every possible way."

"See Ruby?" Blake finished. "They're so similar it's frightening. Do you know the first time he killed someone?"

"It was so fast…" Ruby murmured. "He just spent his Limit Break and killed him before I could blink. It was over in a flash of blue. It looked like an accident."

"But you're not so sure now, are you?" Blake went on. She was relentless. "Adam's was like that too but his flavor was red, a flash of red and it was just over. He fell into pieces."

Ruby curled up, wrapping her hands around her knees in the fetal position. She looked so pathetic I just wanted to die. I felt like I was watching heartbreak in stereo.

"We couldn't have kept that many prisoners. With the bandits. A-and he was covered in blood so often." Ruby mumbled. "He came back soaked in it all the time."

"Adam was like that after his missions. And at the time I thought I was doing everything I could for him… maybe I could have done more. I probably could have done more. But by the time I knew it was too late."

"He looked… he looked more scared about what I thought about it than what he was actually doing. He said I was his moral compass. He said he did things he wasn't proud of," Ruby muttered. "I thought everything was alright but it was all collapsing."

"Ruby…"

"No, no. No. No." Ruby repeated. She shook her head. "It can't be. It just can't. He was so sweet."

"Blake… maybe you should settle down," Weiss said.

"What?" Blake wondered bewildered.

"You're upsetting her."

"It's the truth."

"Oh. Now we're good enough for the truth." I shot.

"I… I was wrong to keep this from you all. Maybe if I would have shared it at Beacon things would have been different. And not just with Jaune. Ruby… just...think about it. I won't tell you Adam was ever a sweetheart. He was never as… soft as Jaune was. At least when I knew Jaune. But from what he all told me he was a hard man after Pyrrha died."

"If only you had been there with me. We could have saved him," Ruby muttered.

"Ruby it's nothing you did. Nothing you could have done. I used to torture myself about Adam. Wondering if I led him down that path. In the end he chose that. And so did Jaune."

"Unless he was a sleeper agent." Weiss said. At our looks she went on. "What? You don't know what happened between him and Salem and he walked into that fight willing to kill and die for Ruby. Not Salem."

"Weiss…" Blake murmured. "Don't get her hopes up. Sleeper agent or not he's dangerous and he's our enemy."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Hey." I cornered Blake by the train-car bathrooms.

"Oh. Hey Yang. What's up?"

"Do you think you could slow down with Ruby."

"Not you too…" Blake trailed. "I just don't want her to make the same mistakes I did."

"I know. I know. I agree with you. I just want you to slow down. You're overwhelming her."

Blake looked away. "I see."

"Yeah. She still sees Jaune as a victim. It won't do her any good if she can't process it."

"What about you, Yang?"

"I think you're making a strong case. Especially when you talked about his semblance. You were getting through to her then."

"I can't believe how similar they are. It's honestly freaking me out a little."

"I hear you…"

"And Yang I should have told you. About Adam. He… well I was embarrassed by it. I was ashamed of how far I let him fall."

"And now Ruby's in the same boat."

"Yes… I wish I could save her."

"One way or another she's going to beat herself up over it."

"I beat myself up over Adam for the longest time. Wondering if I could have done more. What else I should have done."

"Well Ruby's pretty hard on herself. I'm worried about her."

"You're a good sister to be."

"Not good enough…"

"What's that mean?"

"Jaune… Ruby felt like they should hide what they had. From me. For the first time she couldn't trust me with what was going on in her life. And then this happens."

"It's not your fault, Yang. Jaune made his choices."

"I know, I know. I just wish I could have been there for her. When she needed me. That's what hurts. I wish talking to me could have been the right call for her."

Blake reached out and embraced me.

"Ruby made her choice too."

"When I caught them together I flipped out. Overreacted, maybe. He was on top of her and I slammed him against a wall. That was back when we thought he was on our side. It made me wonder if she was right to hide it from me."

"Yang…"

"I freaked out without even thinking. She knew I'd do it too. I alienated my own little sister. She felt like she couldn't share it with me and she was right."

Blake was quiet for a long time. "I don't know what to say."

"Nothing you say will make me feel better about it. I just wanted you to listen. And I want you to trust me like that. To share things with me that are bothering you like you never did at Beacon. I can't track you down like I did when we were at school. I need you to come to me. This can't work if we can't all get along. Team RWBY will be as finished as JNPR."

"I… I understand."

"Then we're square."

"I, too, have been bothered. I worry constantly about my father and mother. The White Fang won't leave them alone, especially now that I forced them back into the limelight."

"What happened?"

"We were attacked. In my house in Menagerie, I was trying to set up a peaceful alternative to the White Fang and they attacked us. They shot at my mom. My dad was almost killed. I ran into some old compatriots in the White Fang. A girl named Ilia and a few others. They ambushed me in the streets after agreeing to a peaceful meeting. They backstabbed us at every turn. And Sienna Khan is dead. Adam was in control of the White Fang until we ran him off at Haven."

"That's a lot of business." I whistled. "You've got a lot on your plate. You're not alone, though."

"I know. I know."

"This is good Blake. This is progress. Sharing things with one another is the first step."

"We should be better at it considering we're partners." She smiled.

"Well we can get better." I smiled at her. "Thank you for what you told my sister. I was worried about getting through to her. I think you really helped."

"The way she was still wearing his hoodie… it reminded me of all the time I spent hung up over Adam."

"It's not the only thing that reminded you of him."

"No. It's not. It really is freaking me out. The similarities between him and Jaune… they're really cutting at me."

"Well hopefully we can get my sister out of this crisis."

"I know Weiss thinks she's helping but she's not. She's only drawing out the wound, making the injury worse."

"I think she is. Ruby needs both. She needs the support."

"If you say so..."

"I do. We'll get through this. We're team RWBY."

We went back to our seats. Ruby was exhausted and napping against Weiss's shoulder.

"Did you two have a nice chat?" She didn't ask with any kind of vitriol and went about stroking Ruby's hair gently.

"We did. Maybe I was too hard on her. Maybe I pushed too fast." Blake said apologetically.

"Maybe she needed to hear it." Weiss dismissed her apology. "What you told us about Adam was concerning."

"You see her point, then."

"I see everyone's points. Jaune really did seem mostly the same to me. He seemed… I don't know- better, in many ways. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he was turning and I just couldn't notice it. If only you'd been there, Blake."

"If only." Blake echoed in a chorus of quiet agreement. "I had other things to take care of."

"In Menagerie?"

"My family. It's hard."

"I know a thing or two about that."

"My family isn't like yours Weiss. They truly deeply care about me. Wait I meant-"

"I know what you meant and it's fine. Team RWBY is my real family. I thought JNPR was too."

"They were." I said. "They definitely were."

"How'd we get so broken up?" Blake asked.

"Beacon's fall. Haven's near miss." Weiss listed. "History will remember them.**"**

I couldn't help but wonder if history would remember us, this team RWBY, for all the wrong reasons.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq.**


	42. Artnia I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Neo POV)

Jaune Arc was a bit like Roman. Not much but it was there. They both had a similarly loose moral code. One I found I'd be able to live inside of.

They were both smooth with their heists. Jaune Arc had proven that, in and out, nice and easy. He got what he needed. He got what information he needed. He got the job done.

Jaune Arc, or Cloud Strife if he prefered, it didn't matter to me, had shown that he knew the stakes when he tortured and killed people to get what he wanted. That proved he was trustworthy. He knew what the world was like.

It compelled me to follow him, more than the money had and as much as the promise of revenge against Cinder Fall, the woman who had set up Roman Torchwick. Who got him arrested. Who undermined his authority. The list went on.

She'd set up Roman to die and for that I needed my vengeance. Cloud Strife got that. He understood. So even with this little detour if he still got me in a position to watch her die, then I could live with it. Hell, I'd even help with it. He made it sound important, even necessary. What with tales of how he was being mind controlled by Cinder's own boss.

There was always a bigger fish. Everyone always had a boss.

I watched him smoke. Roman Torchwick had been a heavy smoker, too. Nicotine, instead of Marijuana. Same same but different.

What was with me and metrosexual men? Cloud Strife's piercings were as bad as Torchwick's mascara. It was a good look though. There was no denying that.

They both tried to control me. Which was fine, I guess. Cloud Strife played things fast and loose unlike Torchwick. Cloud was also a tad mad. He spouted about his mother controlling his thoughts. His mother being Cinder's boss. He was a touch insane, he rode sanity like a knife's edge and I wasn't sure whether he was going to end up cutting himself on it. He was on board with my more sadistic pleasures. He even, dare I say it, appreciated them. Roman never did that. Roman preferred to leave all the torture to me. Cloud got his hands dirty with it. It was like a change in scenery. In the end it was not so different.

I held close to him as he rode. The trees slowly went by to the steady beat of the horse's hooves.

Unlike Roman, Cloud Strife was a competent warrior. In fact, he was mostly a fighter first and a criminal second. It had been the reverse under Roman.

Cloud clicked his tongue and the horse came to a slow stop.

"And who are you little lady?"

I thought he was talking to me for a second. I peeked out around him. There was a little girl in the middle of the road. She might have been thirteen, maybe fifteen. What? I didn't know kids' ages. She was armed though. A massive shuriken in one hand and a sort of shield-gauntlet down the other arm. Her posture was one that indicated imminent violence.

"I'm a dust thief."

"I'm sorry," Cloud sounded bemused. "We don't use dust." I knew he had some pure crystals on him and that he knew how to use them. He was lying. He did so easily enough.

"Yeah right. A couple hunters like you. I bet you're loaded with it."

"You're mistaken little lady."

"I'm not a lady."

Cloud tapped his pipe out and dismounted. He pocketed the pipe at his belt near the blue and gold lamp he carried. I watched from my seat, even this was giving me flashbacks to another little girl and another criminal mastermind. He took calm steps towards her with heavy boot falls. "You're a bandit, then."

"Yeah. So what?"

"Couple a huntsman types like me are supposed to get rid of bandits like you. You got support in these trees?"

"No it's just me. I'm going to take your dust."

"Just you," I heard the frown in Cloud's voice. "I don't buy it."

"It doesn't matter. I'm robbing you!"

"Seriously, where's your back up? I'm not playing around, kid."

"Neither am I. I'm a huntress, I don't need back up."

Cloud rocked on his heels. "I'm being pranked."

She let out a battle cry and rushed him and he swiped her shuriken to the side and knocked her into the dirt. He didn't even draw his weapon.

Tan aura flared over the little girl when he swept her leg with one of his. I just watched from where I sat sidesaddle on the horse.

"Look kid I'm looking for a place called Wutai, you heard of it."

She rose back to her feet with a fire. "Shut up. I'm not a kid. And of course I've heard of it."

"Good, you can lead us there."

"I'm not doing that. We-we're fighting!"

"At best I'm fighting you. And I feel bad the entire time I'm doing it."

"I bet you're scared of me!"

"I'm petrified."

"What?! I'll show you!"

She flung the shuriken at Cloud but he just spun so it bounced off his shield on his back. The little girl caught it again when it rebounded.

"Come on kid, I'm trying to take it easy on you. Don't make me get violent, now. What's a helpless kid like you doing this far from civilization. There could be bandits out here."

"I'm a bandit out here."

"You're really not," Cloud said, pityingly.

She tried to swing her shuriken at him but he stepped in and caught her by the arm. He kicked her legs out from underneath her again.

He ripped the shuriken out of her hands once she was on the ground.

"Hey! You spikey haired jerk!"

"Let me guess. You got aura so now you think you're invincible. You think you're hot shit." Cloud was teaching her a lesson it seemed. Well, he seemed sane enough for the moment. Cloud had moments where the crazy in him shone through. Moments where I wasn't sure he'd kill me just for the sheer pleasure of it.

"I have a semblance!"

"Everyone does."

She tried to rise and he put a heavy boot in the middle of her back.

"Hey-uh!"

"Give it up, kid," Cloud said calmly. He watched her struggle for a few moments.

It was like watching a pinned ant. And I thought I was cruel.

I'd never tortured a little kid before. Some young people sure but never anyone as young as this girl seemed to be. I'd killed some pretty young people too but again not as young as her.

Not that what Cloud was doing was violent or even torture. He was just holding her down until she gave up. He was sparring her life because he was strong and she was weak.

"Neo," he called out. "Catch." He tossed me the shuriken. I caught it easily enough.

"Ugh! Fine!"

"What was that?"

"I said fine! You win or whatever!"

Cloud took his boot off her back. "You'll take us to Wutai, then."

"Um-" she glanced over at me where I held the weapon. My parasol was propped against my shoulder to ward off the sun. "Can I have my weapon back."

"Ask me nicely and I'll consider it."

"Ugh! Can I have it back, please?"

"After you take us to Wutai, sure. You can even think of it as payment."

Cloud walked over and grabbed the horse's reigns. The whole confrontation had been so nonviolent the horse hadn't been disturbed.

He began to lead the horse beside the kid. "Well go on. Lead the way."

"It's not like it's far or anything. I'll show you."

The girl began to stride alongside Cloud.

"Have you been a hunter long?"

"Just a couple of years," Cloud answered her. I filed that information away. Cloud really hadn't been at this all too long. Some people's semblances and powers developed even more. Cloud's was definitely the type that was nebulous enough to do so.

I took the girl in now that she was closer.

She wore a white headband with a green sleeveless turtleneck which showed her stomach not unlike my new clothes. She wore orange fingerless gloves and bright orange shoes.

She watched me lash the shuriken to the horse's side. I wasn't going to carry it the whole time and Cloud didn't seem to mind in the slightest. He was pragmatic, like Roman.

"You're really strong. Like my father."

"Your father eh?"

"He's the leader of Wutai."

"It's a good thing I didn't rough you up too much, then. You got a name kid?"

"It's Yuma. Yuma Kisaragi. Not kid."

"Sorry Yuma. Well, you steal from hunters often?"

"Not really. I try and it never seems to work."

"Probably for the best."

"That's what my dad always says."

Unlike Roman, Cloud had a way with kids, it seemed. Some women liked that but I couldn't really get it.

"So what's your name?"

"I'm Cloud."

"And who's the lady with you?"

"This? Oh this is Neo. She doesn't talk much."

Ever. She doesn't talk ever.

"What kind of weapon do you use?"

"Just a sword and shield."

"That's pretty plain."

"I'm a pretty plain guy."

"I use that shuriken."

"I saw. You're not so bad with it."

"You really think so?"

Cloud nodded. "A few more years and you'll be in a pretty good place."

"That seems like forever."

"You'd be surprised how fast time goes. Keep at it."

"Ugh, you sound even more like my dad. Do you have a semblance.

Cloud gave her a slow nod. He seemed wary of talking about his semblance. That was wise of him. To prevent anyone from figuring out his weaknesses.

"Can you show me?"

"I wouldn't. It's pretty lackluster."

I snorted. Cloud had won the superpower lottery. Limit Breaker made him damn near unstoppable. I had yet to see him really use it in force. He beat me by standing still and his weapon had another form. I was sure of it though he had yet to use it against me.

"She doesn't seem to think so. I bet your semblance is pretty great."

"Well thank you kindly." Cloud did a southern Vale accent. "But you know a semblance is only as good as it's wielder."

"Then I'm going to have the best semblance."

"I thought you said you had it already."

"I well-" the kid stammered. "I haven't quite unlocked it yet."

She didn't have it, then. Didn't have a clue. Damn kids were a bother.

"Bluffing, were ya?"

"Maybe a little.

The kid was annoying. I wish he'd dump her already. But I guess he must have some kind of plan in mind for her. Maybe for getting in the leader of Wutai's good graces.

"You ought to be more careful. If I was somebody else I might have hurt you."

"Yeah, yeah. I'd have managed some way or another. I'm a huntress," She repeated.

"Even hunters die."

"Hunters like my dad always seem so strong, though."

"Until they fight another hunter. The matchup could be bad for them and when they lose it's for keeps."

"Really?" She sounded like she couldn't believe it.

"Only all the time."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Dad, dad!" Yuma went running out into the village.

"Oi! I thought you wanted your weapon back!?" Cloud called out to her.

"Oh that's right."

Reminded, she came running back in those bright orange shoes for her shuriken. An elderly fellow came out from the largest house to see us. Middle-aged and with the gentle thrum of aura and nothing to prove.

Cloud handed her her weapon back, unstrapping it from beside the horse.

"Payment done. A pleasure doing business with you."

She beamed up at Cloud.

"Hail stranger. What are you doing with my daughter?"

"She tried to ambush us on the side of the road. Something about taking our dust. I'm not really sure." Cloud smiled easily.

"Yuma…" The man growled. He bought our story easily enough to make me wonder about the young girl's habits.

"Dad this is Cloud. He's a hunter. He's really strong!"

The kid didn't know the half of it. Cloud was cunning and he was brutal. I remembered him snapping that guy's fingers like pretzels. Plus he shattered aura and killed without hesitation. Roman wasn't like that.

"Hush now Yuma. I apologize for the trouble my daughter caused you."

She loudly humphed but did as her father bade.

"No harm, no fowl," Cloud replied easily.

"I appreciate you taking it easy on her. I am Godo Kisaragi."

"I'm just glad I found her before some bandits did," Cloud said, an easy smile on his lips. "I'm Cloud Strife. This is Neapolitan, just Neapolitan," he introduced us to the Dono of the town.

"I must ask since we don't often get strangers this way, what brings two young hunters out here?"

"I'm looking for Merlot's laboratory. Do you know of it? Do you know where it is?"

"I do. It's a place of true abominations. I must ask what ever for? No one has been out to see the laboratory in years. What business is it of yours?"

"He and I have unfinished business. I'm looking for him and I have to start somewhere. I got wind of this lab and made it a part of my agenda."

"What of the little miss on the horseback, Neapolitan was it?"

"Oh, she doesn't talk." Cloud went on with that same relaxed smile. I suppose he and Roman both had a way with people. "I've been her mouth piece, I suppose."

It was a good skill to have in our business.

"Indeed, you treated my daughter well. That's reason enough for me to like you. Why don't you come in for tea and we can discuss Merlot and his laboratory. Yuma, go get tea started for our young guests."

Cloud tied the horse off and helped me down off the horse's back like a gentleman. He left his weapon at the door meanwhile I folded my parasol neatly and attached it to my waist such that the blade of the sword-stick was in easy drawing distance. Cloud gave me a warning look but said nothing about it. No doubt he was slightly happier with one of us armed but he wanted me to start no trouble.

Fine by me.

Godo led the way inside and Yuma disappeared into a kitchen to put water on to boil.

"What do you intend to do with his laboratory?"

"Destroy it, probably. Along with the Grimm he left behind."

"No mean feat. There's a reason the laboratory is mostly abandoned and left alone by us. We tend to skirt the edges of it when we need to go near it at all."

"I take it he's no longer here, then."

"No one has seen him in months. It's likely he left some time ago, leaving only augmented monstrosities behind and a building."

"He augmented the Grimm?"

"Some. Others are vaguely human, creations of his laboratory that were deemed failures in his eyes. He set them loose on the landscape. We've been dealing with them for years now."

Cloud's eyes narrowed. Yuma came in with hot water and poured some tea.

"Sorry," she murmured after she spilled some. She wiped it down with a spare cloth she was using to hold the kettle.

"You're doing fine," Cloud returned.

I drank some of the sweet tea. It tasted fine, even if tea wasn't quite my well- my cup of tea.

"I need to get in there and find out where he headed next," Cloud said. "Know thy enemy and all that jazz."

"Why? If you don't mind me asking."

"I- he hurt me. His work did me harm. It's a touch personal. He got some of my friends killed, it was in a roundabout way but he's still at fault."

"Ah- forgive me then."

"There's nothing to forgive." Cloud took a sip of his own tea. "It's good. You did well, Yuma."

She blushed like a school girl under his praise. Cloud was good looking I suppose. And he didn't even need Roman's makeup to pull off his looks. The earrings made him look a little effeminate but it was countered by his wide shoulders and arms. His frame simply wasn't that of a woman's. With wide shoulders and narrow hips.

He cut a dangerous figure.

"Well, I never thought hunters would come out to help us with our little problem."

"Don't get my motivation twisted."

"I shan't," Godo said. "You are out for vengeance. At least your motivation is understandable. And who better to be the target of your rage than Merlot? At least in my eyes. All the same, if you can remove this looming threat, I shall sleep better at night."

"I suppose. Tell me about the laboratory."

"It's built to withstand punishment. It's crawling with green Grimm. Modified by Dr. Merlot. The humanoid Grimm lurk deeper into their territory. They are fast with wicked claws and a sort of malicious intelligence."

"Are they self aware? Do they plan and communicate?"

"No. And not to my knowledge. Anything is possible with old Grimm but I do not see them as capable of such."

"Always good news. I'd hate to fight them if they were truly person-like."

"They are not. They are wretched, desperate things. Could you imagine a human Grimm?" Cloud took a long drink of tea. He'd mentioned the possibility that he had Grimm to his nature himself. Talk of this lab only seemed to back that up. Well, it certainly explained his psychosis. "Capable of walking amongst us? Of talking?"

"Terrifying," Cloud agreed. "It's what I had been afraid of when you mentioned human Grimm."

"They are nothing like that. Though they are dangerous. They are more like Grimm in the shape of a person rather than person-Grimm." Some Grimm took on attributes of the creatures they looked like. Cloud seemed content that this wasn't the case with these artificial Grimm.

"It sounds like they're monsters all the same. I can destroy them if that's all they are."

"I would warn you not to be arrogant but I can tell you are confident in your abilities. Many people have underestimated their speed and suffered for it. They occasionally make their way North here to the village."

"Just wandering? Or in real groups?"

"Sometimes one and the other."

"I can't promise to kill them all, just to cut a path through them to the lab."

"That's more than I could have asked a sane person for. I'm not as fit as I once was. I was slowly dwindling their number as they splayed out and little more. Your presence and assault will be a great boon to us. Wutai will be in your debt."

"I wouldn't sweat it. You don't have anything I want. Except those directions to the lab."

"Of course."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	43. The Jenova Project I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I cut down the Grimm in front of me. It was green where it should have been white. The discoloration a sign of the modifications Merlot had subjected it to. I spun the broadsword with one hand easily.

Neo was by my side and she tore through the Grimm with grace enough for two.

I wasn't quite sure what the point of the modifications were. Were the Grimm stronger or faster? Maybe. But not enough for it to matter. At least to me.

We'd left the horse back in town. Godo had given his word it would be safe there while we worked out magic. I sliced and cut into the creeper's flesh. I put out a boot and crushed a green one like it was a child's toy and not a ravaging killing machine.

Neo had her stiletto in one hand and the umbrella in the other. She worked methodically covering my flank as we marched further into the Grimm infested territory.

We'd yet to see the humanoid Grimm I'd been wary of. Just these modified Creepers and Beowulfs. I spun my sword around my body and brought it down, crushing a Beowulf as much as slicing it.

Lately I've been fine in my ruminating state but it felt good to blow off some steam against some enemies which definitely deserved it. Grimm weren't like people and for a moment I was able to remember the light.

I cut down monsters left and right, conserving my energy as we pushed deeper into the woods. I spent my Limit Break on blade-beams when I got it and held onto the strength and speed as long as I thought I could manage before I threw it away and started on the next one.

I once finishing-touched an Ursa Major we'd come across. The whirlwind of attacks stormed the beast until there was nothing left of it and it dissolved away into grime and smoke.

I wouldn't even need to clean my blade after this. It had been so long since I'd fought these. The true enemy of humanity. I had forgotten. I was a slayer of monsters, truly.

I heard Mother's voice even through the fighting. It was beckoning me to the kingdomless lands. To take the relic and fly to her. I could pull it off too. If I just gave in to that alien goddess it would all be fine. The voices and the bugs would stop.

Instead I marshalled myself and pressed on. Neo flickered out to one side and stabbed through two Beowulfs with a refined ease. She was acrobatic as she accompanied me. Flickering out from the wedge I was driving and destroying and Grimm which dared to get close.

I reached out and crushed a Beowulf's neck with my left hand. I easily strangled it until it was naught but dust and ash.

I would have taken a smoke break a while ago but the Grimm had been unrelenting. It was like disturbing an ant hill as we pushed deeper into enemy grounds. The more we killed the more we seemed to aggravate the whole until I at last caught a glance of a lopsided creature.

I thought it was a Beowulf but it moved more raggedly. It was entirely bipedal with one arm disproportionately larger than the other and ripped with barbed white claws. It was fast but slower than I had been expecting, than I had been afraid of. It's face was the least human thing about it. It had a looming maw in place of a head and seemed to detect me without any eyes.

I blocked it's strike and riposted hard. It went down bisected by my enormously wide blade. The six feet of range never allowed it to get close to me.

I stepped nearer and looked at it as it dissolved. Neo and I shared a look and I could only hope that she felt the same disgust I did over the monstrosity.

How had Merlot made these monstrosities? How had he made me? Was I like them? Godo had called these ones failures… was I a successful model? Who and what was I really? Time could be my only guide as I pursued the truth.

Neo and I held the line together as we moved apart and chopped away at the Grimm that was swarming us. It was possible I was in a bad mood thinking about my origins.

Oh well. Godo-Dono would be appreciative of us killing more Grimm and so far these weren't threatening. It was the sheer number of them that made them dangerous. They were trying to swamp us. I Cross-Slashed two Beowulfs at once. The strikes, the same ones that had killed Ren, demolished the Grimm bodies. Tearing away chunks of red and black Grimm flesh the same way they'd torn into my friend's aura.

It had a sort of sickening familiarity to it.

It wasn't good, I'd spent the last week nearly constantly wasted on greens to hold back my psychosis and it was biting back at me now, as if to punish me.

I blinked rapidly trying to get the bugs out of my eyes and ignore the sweet whispering call of Mother's voice.

_Child, my child…_

_Obey me… come to me…_

I fought through it. Whatever it was I was born with it. I could beat this. I rubbed my eyes and stuck a finger in my ear. I changed the motion and rubbed my earlobe. As though I'd be giving her power if I acknowledged the hallucinations.

I heard Mother... Salem- laugh softly.

I couldn't go back. I'd gone too far for that. Besides, I wasn't the sort to listen. To Salem or Ozpin, Ozma she'd called him. I climb-hazard a Beowulf and slammed it back into the ground in a brutal action, releasing some pent up rage. I Limit Broke and became an absolute wall against them, spinning my blade around me and slicing any Grimm foolish enough to come into my long-long range.

Another two 'human' Grimm approached me and I blocked their long claws and stepped back. I swiped low and took off one's leg at the knees. I thrust forward into the other's chest and it died. I brought the blade down on the still crawling one's head.

The person-like Grimm came at us enforce then and we had to give ground to take ground. I jabbed, thrust, and bit my way through them. I was a terror with my weapon and though I backed up, the enemy kept dying around me.

Neo stood with me. Lashing out from behind me when she saw the opportunity and alerting me when we were going to be overwhelmed at our position.

I front flipped and brought the blade down in a massive Limit Breaker attack and it shattered the ground along with a half dozen of them.

I normal Cross-Slashed when I saw the opportunity and danced with my blade all through the enemy.

I removed limbs with a casual ease and beheaded the fast Grimm with a casual calm. They were driving us back but they couldn't keep this up forever.

The only advantage they had was numbers and they started to thin out as I bust the cuts out on them. I opened deep gashes in the enemy, ones which would never heal and I smashed them under my foot.

I lacerated them with the massive blade, crushing Grimm white bone at the same time I opened up that red inside. I clipped heads off and rolled my wrists making my weapon a blur as I worked my way through them.

I panted as the last of them died and leaned against Crocea Mors for a moment to catch my breath.

We'd arrived at a steep cliff and there at the bottom sat a white metal roof. It was stained and bullied by the Grimm who constantly attempted to undo the work of humanity. Godo-Dono was right. This place had been built to withstand assault.

Assault by the Grimm perhaps, but not by trained huntsmen like yours truly.

The whole place was giving me a sick sense of Deja Vu. I'd been here before. I knew it like I knew the feel of my own heartbeat, like I knew the long red padded handle of Crocea Mors.

I charged Limit to absolutely full. Then I just jumped and before I hit the ground I climb-hazard the wall, rising back up after falling without even hitting the ground. I stood on top of Crocea Mors, embedded in the rock. I pulled it free of the cliff face and then I landed and simply took my weight on my legs.

I looked up to witness Neapolitan drifting down with her parasol. She looked peaceful, relaxed.

The structure looked mostly clear and I stood still, charging Limit Breaker while I waited for her to land. I left it a hair away from charged and resumed my patient waiting.

I searched my way around the sides of the building, looking for a way in until I found a set of blast doors on the Eastern side away from the cliff. They weren't made of Titania, forged of some kind of cold steel instead. That meant I'd be able to cut my way through.

I activated Limit Breaker and Cross-Slashed the doors. The steel fell away to reveal another set of blast doors into which I'd partially cut. I just charged my semblance again and came down with a massive overhead strike and two horizontal swings to pry it open.

Neapolitan landed on the roof above me as I finished breaking my way inside. There was a fury in my heart I couldn't quite place. I was pissed off at being born somewhere wretched like this.

I hovered my way inside. The light I cast from Limit Breaker cast a fine shifting glow over the walls.

I closed my eyes and focused on holding onto the Limit as long as I possibly could. I didn't want to be in the dark in here. I needed the light.

Wisps of my semblance washed over the ceiling as I paced my way inwards. Neo teleported beside me and gave me something like a reassuring smile. I just frowned. The genius loci of this place hated me and I hated it. The feeling was totally mutual. We came across rows and rows of… pods I guess you'd call them. Inside each came a soft greenish glowing light which was familiar to me. Like some distant fever dream.

I could hear Salem's voice whispering louder now.

_Bring it to me… come to me child… my beloved son…_

I didn't buy it. It was getting annoyingly distracting, though. Shadows loomed from every corner of the place along the thick tanks. I walked up to one and peeked inside. There was one of the humanoid Grimm in there. For all the world lifeless and floating, naked and shameless.

"Is this what I am? Just one of these… these clones too?" I asked.

Neo didn't answer. She looked distinctly concerned though. I breathed and tried to relax. I cast light with a wave of my arm upwards. At the top of the rows and rows of tanks there was a larger one. With an inward blue light emanating from the glass window. I walked up to it and traced my fingers across the glass. Nothing floated inside.

"This… this is where I was born. Where I was made. This tank right here. I remember being on the opposite side. The blue light… all of it. It seems surreal to see it from this side now."

True enough I felt almost a sense of vertigo to be looking in from the outside.

I walked down the steps and Neo followed, skipping to keep up, umbrella at the ready.

"If I'm supposed to be comforted by the feeling of having a special tank amongst these cloned monsters I'm not. Let's see what else we can find."

I paced downwards away from the rows and rows of tanks. There was an office there. It had a wide chalkboard… and rows and rows of books.

There was a security terminal too. I booted it up but it asked for a password. I hadn't the slightest clue what the password could be. I turned to the books.

"Let's see… Jaune Arc, perhaps. No… it seems he only gave model numbers to successes. If I'm a true failure I won't be in here. Perhaps it's this one."

I pulled a book from the shelf and breezed through it. Notes on the DNA of the creatures in the tanks. And graphic illustrations of those monsters.

"One of these will be about me. Or my line of models at least…"

I tossed the book behind me and grabbed another. It was full of details on a vivisected Beowulf. I leafed through it and tossed it aside. I was beginning to make a bit of a mess.

"You want to help?" I asked Neo.

She gave a slow cautious affirming nod.

"At that terminal, try variations on Jaune Arc. What with caps and spaces and all. Maybe it'll work. I don't know."

She nodded and began typing away at the computer with resounding mechanical _clacks_.

I tossed another book over my shoulder. Adding to the growing pile. I ransacked the shelves but whatever labeling system Merlot had used didn't agree with me.

Eventually Neo stopped typing.

"No luck?"

She shook her head.

"I thought not… Did you try 'password?'"

She gave me a flat look and did. No dice. Just that same login screen.

"Hey wouldn't you? If you were me?"

She sighed heavily but she did nod.

I tossed a book on Creepers over my shoulder. It landed haphazardly and I found I didn't much care. If Merlot ever returned he'd find his collection in a state of miserable disarray.

"Wait this is it." It was a vitruvian man which kinda looked like me. It was in the cheekbones and jawline and around the eyes. It had my tank's label to it.

"I was… I was made from Salem's cells. And some donor's. It doesn't say who. How in the world did he get his hands on Salem's cells? Doesn't she like… live on a kingdomless continent? I feel a pull in her direction but I cannot tell how far."

"I was grown here from a fetus. In that tank until I was nearly an adult. The tank educated me, I think. There are vague impressions..."

"Salem's cells… it must explain her control over me. How she's able to get in my head. Why I still hear the whispers. I can still hear her now."

Neo pantomimed smoking.

I nodded, relieved at even the thought and pulled my pipe out. I packed it from the grinder with some Lemon Drop Haze and took a long pull using my lighter. My semblance died out around then. I sighed and started to recharge. I took a long pull as I did and the only thing I could see was the glowing red embers in the pipe, slowly growing, then slowly dying out as I roached the entire thing in a single pull.

I exhaled and like a light switch my semblance turned on. I breathed out in Neo's direction by accident and she waved a hand through the smoke, looking annoyed.

"Sorry," I breathed. "Sorry."

"It says here… it says I was a partial failure." I wasn't sure what to make of that. At least I had a face unlike the humanoid Grimm and he counted those as...something I guess. I felt something bitter rise up in me. Something howling.

A failure without so much as a birth.

I couldn't even be a failure from birth.

I had no model number. My father… Merlot...

Instead on through the notes. "This explains my fake memories. They were given to me by the tank. And my… and my sisters. There's no mention of them. I wonder if they were successes." I put the little book in my pocket and perused the rest of the shelf. "They'd have a different model number if they were successes…"

I searched through every last book but found no mention of them, my sisters and no more references to me, myself, either.

"She said I was Merlot's. Could my sisters have come from somebody else? The more questions I have answered the more questions I have!"

I swung out with Crocea Mors and shattered the glass on the tank nearest the office. Neapolitan shot up, looking alarmed. The Grimm thing stirred but I reached through the broken glass and strangled it with my bare hands. Liquids from the tank dripped over me and the green light dimmed. It fell apart into a disgusting black fluid.

I growled and wanted to scream.

"Nothing about this makes sense. Nothing about this is _fair_. I'm going to get my hands on Merlot for real. I'll make him pay for ever creating me. Every ounce of agony I have ever suffered I shall inflict upon him ten-fold."

I laughed madly and shattered another tank. I stabbed straight through it and the Grimm thing inside. Malformed. A reject. A bad batch and nothing more. That's all my existence was. My entire life and every emotion I'd ever felt.

The only people who could answer my questions were Salem and Merlot and lords only knew where Merlot was. I had no intention of going near Salem. Just so she could control my mind again? I wanted nothing to do with that.

I skewered another tank and this time I did scream. I pierced the thing inside and it died a bubbly, gurgling death.

Neo watched from the sidelines, transfixed. Her face was ashen white.

With shaking hands I pulled my pipe out again and set up another hit. I pulled hard and long and coaxing.

I fell to my knees with it and for a minute or two I just let myself be fully and truly mad. My semblance evaporated and I was in total darkness.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	44. The Jenova Project II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Wutai was burning when we returned. We could see the smoke a ways off. I rushed to help, flying with Limit Breaker. People were trapped under rubble, a collapsed house and I picked it up off them allowing them to escape despite the flames licking out at me.

With my aura I was amongst the safest.

Neo caught up to me but I was already moving. I'd seen enough burnt down villages for a life-time.

I found Godo in the middle of town, he was directing the firefighting crews about.

"What happened here?"

"Strife-San? We were attacked. Bandits in the woods. Ever since Branwen took over they've been getting bolder. They took my daughter."

"Why would they do that?" My hands itched. I was jumping out of my skin. That murderous something rose up in me. The Grimm we'd slaughtered on the way back had satisfied me none.

"Ransom. They believe they'll be able to hold her over me and receive our supplies. It's not the first time we have been attacked in such a way. Though I was stronger back then. I fear for my daughter's life."

"I'll help you. You just worry about putting out the fires. I'll see about getting you your daughter back."

I had a great deal of pent up rage that could only be quelled against human opponents. Things prone to suffering deserved my attention, not like the Grimm.

"I would be in your debt."

I dismissed him with a wave of my gloved hand and turned to the tracks in the earth. My preternatural ability to track Grimm wouldn't help here but the footprints were clear in the soft ground and I was faster than even your average hunter. I'd catch up to them.

I flew through the woods. One hand out and the other back holding Crocea Mors up in its broadest form. I hungered for violence. The little book about my construction in my pocket felt as heavy as the relic by my side. It felt as heavy as Crocea Mors, even.

I wanted to use both my sword and the relic. After this… after this I'd give it a try. I needed something to help me cope and I wasn't sure murder and drugs were going to do it for me. I really wanted to kill something, though, something that could feel pain. And I really wanted to get these bugs out of my eyes.

Maybe knowledge would be the key. It was one of the four most powerful relics on Remnant's face. I'd be a fool to not try something with it.

I glid inches above the forest floor. The bramble and uneven ground which might have tripped me up couldn't slow me. I leaned forward over the vines and flew faster. It was dusk, only getting darker. Someone who couldn't fly would be seriously slowed and hampered by the terrain. I low profiled the tree branches and flew right through them where they might delay me, my aura and I weren't to be halted by this.

There was a reason most horror stories took place in the woods and at the moment I felt like such a terror.

I must have flown kilometers, chasing them through the underbrush they trampled and I merely breezed past. I left Neo behind but she'd be able to catch up if she was decent at tracking. Teleporting would also help her match me.

I could make out a light in the woods ahead. A small light which burned beneath the great pine trees.

I hovered forward and transitioned to easy footsteps. "Found you…" I murmured. I wanted to murder. I wanted death. I wanted to kill.

The bandits had a building made from hewn logs to make walls. I could spot the light of their campfire inside and a few tents. They didn't have wide enough walls for battlements and had no sentries. Instead it sounded like a party inside.

Neo appeared beside me. She panted hard for a minute or two as I took stock of the situation.

"Like I said, go nuts." I told her. "Personally I'm taking no prisoners."

She laughed silently beside me.

I front-flipped over the logs and landed in the middle of their camp near the blazing fire.

I spotted Yuma tied up with rope by the fire. She was surrounded by celebrating bandits who slowly went for their weapons. Well slowly relative to the speed I was running at.

"Things may not work out for you," I whispered, holding the broadsword level. Blue light streamed off my body and I felt good in the elevated state.

Some of them wore armor imitating Grimm bone. If they wanted Grimm I'd show them Grimm. I was a can of that type of worm. I would show them the trouble that meant. The beast in my chest roared something angry and malevolent.

I attacked. One nearest me went for a sword at his belt. I slashed him. Biting deep into aura, I knocked him to the ground. I brought my sword down in a hacking motion once, twice, three times and I sliced through him at the neck and sent his head rolling.

I felt the violent spirit inside me only grow louder. It was hungry for bloodshed and I was going to give it to it.

Spears, axes, guns all pointed at me. Neo flickered into place beside me and bullets bounced off her bullet proof umbrella.

I rolled behind her taking cover from the storm of bullets that ensued. When there was a reprieve I flew out from behind her and slashed down at a girl nearby me wearing that Grimm white bone on her shoulders. She flinched back and raised her pistol. I swung upwards and clipped her arms. Another man came at me with a spear but I blocked it to the side.

I Cross-Slashed him and he fell into four pieces. Even without Limit I was feeling good. I… I wasn't sure I wanted to stop at these bandits. Wutai was weak. I could kill everyone there and no one would be the wiser.

I came back to the girl with the pistol and slashed her across the ribs. Then brought my blade down at her shoulder. Her aura flared and shattered as I thrust the wide blade into her chest. I gave it a shaking motion, bringing the Titania up and she fell off with a _shlick_ noise.

I swung horizontally at one with a rifle and he tried to block with his weapon but I cut right through it and knocked him to the ground. I kicked him in the chest where he fell with my right foot in a snapping tai-kick. Then I stepped forward and snapped out a round kick with my left. Then I brought the blade around lightning fast and cut him at the torso, just above the arm, and all the way through his rib cage.

Another still I punished with a devastating falling aerieal attack. I sliced at him and tore away a chunk of aura. Then I sideflipped and slashed with the motion cutting him again. He tried to stab down at me but I caught it easily on my massive blade. I lifted my weapon and the motion tossed him backwards and I was on him the cuts until he fell forever. Horizontal. Vertical. Diagonal. Vertical.

Neo landed beside me and pulled at my sleeve. She got my attention. I glanced at her face to see something like fear on her expression. I'd never seen her look like that. I followed her gaze. I turned to look at a woman in a Grimm faced mask with a long red katana. She had a wild mane of black hair that went waist length.

"You have some nerve attacking me."

"I have no idea who you are."

She laughed beneath her mask. "I'm the Khan of Khans."

"Raven Branwen. I know your daughter," I confessed.

"I have no daughter."

I charged Limit for a beat and was rewarded with the trailing, glowing, blue wisps. I twirled my weapon about and placed it between us. She waved her Katana at me, it was nearly four feet long but it looked fragile in comparison to Crocea Mors.

"I would know your name, Warrior. You know mine."

"I'm Cloud Strife. Your reign of destruction and pillaging ends here."

"Doubtful. Many have tried and stood where you now stand."

"None of them were like me. I am danger's child."

She blurred forward as though to get around me but I matched her speed and blocked her. She lowered her weapon slightly. Because of the mask, I couldn't identify what emotion she felt. She was fast, like Cinder or Tyrian fast.

But I'd kept pace with Cinder when last we met. Raven blurred to one side, trying to flank me again but I matched her once more and our weapons collided in a flash of blue and red. She stumbled back and took stock of her situation. I was faster than her with my semblance active. I might even be outright stronger than her too by a degree. Perhaps even without my semblance. My range was superior to her too and of course, one way to look at that was that she is slower than Ruby who I was able to match at times.

I raised my weapon parallel to my face. I thrust at her but she swept it to the side. She front-flipped at me but I caught both her and her downward swing with a horizontal roof block. I held one hand on the handle and the other against the back of the blade. I held up the force of her strike and her entire body weight easily. I pressed her back and she landed on her feet neatly.

I wasn't about to back down from this fight. I felt like I had a real shot at winning it.

The beast in my chest let out a low wary murmur. It was not satisfied. I wasn't satisfied. Both I and it wanted Raven to die, just for getting in my way. It shrieked for more blood to be spilled. A devouring volume that kept rising. A drum that beat in time with my heart.

Raven came at me and slashed her katana then when I shielded she reversed it and tried to stab at me. I deflected that too and quickly brought the weight of Crocea Mors down on her head. She stepped back out of my range hurriedly, desperately avoiding the massive strike. The power of it left the earth grooved. For five feet out in front of the tip of the blade. It would have splashed that energy across her body if it had come into contact with her.

She jumped somersaulting acrobatically towards me and I just flew straight at her. Our blades met twice in a crossing gesture while in mid-air but I had some force propelling me as I flew and with a low guiding hum of metal on metal I flung her back into one of the tents.

She landed ungracefully and rolled to the side as I brought Crocea Mors thrusting vertically down where she had laid fallen. She kicked at me and I stumbled back from the force of it.

She swept her blade at my legs but I hovered over it, grabbed her and pushed her all the way back to the wall where the bandits had hurried logs to make up their camp.

I tried to push her straight through it but I only managed to slam her into it. At this range neither of our swords could be brought to bear and it turned into a melee.

She elbowed me in the face and down across my eye as I went to knee her in the gut. She knocked my knee back down, catching it on her one open palm.

I grabbed her by the shoulder and stuck out one leg and tossed her back all the way across the clearing. She rolled to her feet. Bringing her katana up to handle what came at her next.

I slashed at her twice before I thrust forward and caught her by the belly. I pulled twenty feet straight up in the air and came slamming back down on her with a Climb-Hazard. She dodged out of the way of the second hit. And sliced me across the chest. She went for another cut about mid-height but I deflected it and with a shot I slung her away and into the wall of the camp once more.

I ran up to her and slashed horizontally in a move that brought the fifteen foot high wall of logs down on us. She flickered out of the way but I cut my path up through the falling tree trunks.

"You know I thought you'd have a whole entourage with you, following the queen of the bandits. Seems to me you're mostly alone. Why is that?"

She jumped at me and I Limit Break Bladebeamed her. The tall beam caught her by the legs and dragged her into it. The move blended against her aura until it began to crackle, then it tossed her away.

No longer glowing blue I found myself still propelled on nothing more than my will. I was tractionless above the ground and I slid at her on a pocket of air until I slashed at her baseball style and it connected across her body and sent her rebounding off the ground.

"Vernal is dead. I didn't kill her but your little spring maiden is gone." I went on.

I stood still, just charging away at my next Limit Break. I'd get it eventually and once I did I'd be in a comfortable position to end her.

"You work for her, for Salem."

"Yes." I breathed. "And no. We have a complicated relationship. Family is like that, though. I'm sure you understand."

She moved fast enough to leave behind an after-image. She sliced at me and I blocked the first attack but the second caught me under the ribs. It buffeted me back but I quickly regained my balance. She came around for a third but I twisted my much wider blade around to catch it.

She front kicked at me and caught me in the center of the chest. I was once more knocked back but I wasn't losing any real ground. I laughed. She cut me four more times in the blink of an eye. Slashing back and forth with her long red katana. The pain felt amazing. There was a popping sound as the air expanded around me and my semblance returned.

Blue flames kicked out and I caught her sword arm, picked her up and slammed her face first into the ground once. Twice. Three times. Then I delivered a boot to her head that sent her rolling. I swept after her on a pocket of air and sent her a golf swing. It was a strike upwards that caught her by the chest.

It launched her into the air and I chased after her. I slashed at her with my heavy weapon while she was airborn and helpless. I cut spent Limit on an eight cut move. I hit her with two diagonal cuts that rebounded off her aura. Then I hit her with four horizontal ones. Then I front-flipped and delivered two more massive vertical ones alternating each direction.

The final hit sent her rocketing to earth where she threw up dust and dirt. I landed gently nearby and began to pace over to where she was slowly struggling to rise.

She sheathed her blade, I watched the compartment cycle for a moment until she withdrew it and shot a current of electricity at me. It came at me like a curtain and I watched the yellow blade she had drawn shatter as she spent the dust forged into it.

It hardly mattered since the bolt threw me off my feet into the encampment wall and left me singed. She slashed at the air and a red portal appeared. She stepped into it and was gone as the portal faded and collapsed.

I screamed. When I picked myself up I howled and stabbed some poor bandit soul who was still standing too close, perhaps waiting to finish me off. My aura was indeed on the lower side, but not so low that I'd be finished by scum like that.

I reached out with my sword and slashed at the man's purple aura until it gave way and I sliced through his body too.

Neo reappeared beside me and for a moment I wanted to kill her too. I breathed in and out, nice and easy.

"I'm fine," I said through grit teeth. "Just pissed off she escaped me. I fucking had her dead to rights with that Octa-slash."

She gestured at the remaining bandits.

"Kill them. Torture them. Whatever pleases you." She nodded looking relieved and pleased. She vanished, flickering away.

I walked over to Yuma and sheathed my broadsword. I pulled the longsword free from my back and cut her loose. I pulled the gag that had been in her mouth out.

She reached out and embraced me and the monster in my heart that I'd discovered in Merlot's laboratory died down. I just held the young girl in my arms and shushed her.

She looked over at what Neo was doing and I pulled her head back.

"Look at me, sweetheart. Don't pay that any attention." There was screaming coming from behind us.

"You saved me."

"It was the right thing to do." I said it gruffly like I didn't want to believe it. Ruby… Pyrrha… neither would be proud of they'd seen what I'd become and before this young girl I felt a crawling sense of shame.

I was ashamed of letting the darkness in my heart rule me.

So what if I was a puppet? So what if I was born a monster? So what even if I had to kill people? Even if I have to torture people?

I didn't have to like it. I wasn't sure if that was enough of a difference to set me free. I wasn't even sure if it gave me a sense of hope. More than anything I still felt an inching dread. Maybe I was hopeless. Maybe I was doomed.

But there was a difference between doing what I must for the sake of doing what I had to and doing what I wanted to because I could.

I didn't have to be like Tyrian. I didn't have to be like Salem's agents. I could still choose what I wanted. And tonight I'd chosen death and torture over everything else. I'd wanted that. Me.

And I couldn't take it back.

And a thousand saved little girls didn't change that.

It didn't change the fact that if Wutai hadn't been burning when I arrived, I might have been the one to burn it down. If there hadn't been a drive, something for me to focus my rage on I'd have been the cold creature that stalks the night. Just a puppet all the same.

I pulled the relic from my side and pulled the top off of it.

Blue gas floated free of it as it drifted loose of my fingers. The fire stopped flickering and held in place. Yuma held her shuddering sobs still.

A woman formed of that mist. She stretched over her golden chains and yawned.

"Ah- tell me now. What knowledge do you seek? Three questions yet remain this century. So ask, and I shall answer."

"Mother...How do I stop her? She can control me. So how do I stop Salem?" I choked out.

The floating woman gave me a small sad smile.

"Stop her? Or vanquish her?"

"There's a difference?"

"You tell me."

"Either."

"You cannot vanquish her. As long as this planet turns, she shall walk it's face," the blue woman spoke. She floated forward and cupped my face in her hands. I looked away and where I touched her, her fingers faded into that blue mist.

"She's immortal? She's unbeatable, then."

"Perhaps. Only her mind. Her body can be injured, however temporarily. She can be cut and she can be lanced."

"Then… then she can be stopped. Just… just…"

"Just not forever. She will never be just a memory."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	45. Flower Girl V

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Argus was beautiful. The Mistrali architecture blended and contrasted nicely with that of its Atlesian half. We rode a tram through the city streets and felt the quiet security of the place. There was a humble peace here, one the Black-Out day panic hadn't touched.

I sighed.

It was nice. The environment was relaxing.

Especially after the train ride had turned stressful for me.

My Jaune's semblance was like Blake's Adam's. That meant something. They were similar. They had to be. That's how semblances worked. They were about the soul and that meant Jaune's soul, his very essence, was like Adam's.

That was scary. I'd heard of Adam by now and seen the harm he brought my sister. He'd planned to bomb Haven. He'd set the Grimm loose at Beacon.

Jaune had once described using the Grimm as a weapon as a genius move. Was the difference between him and Adam smaller than I thought? The way Blake told it, it was possible. It was possible enough to make me doubt my own memory of things.

Like when Jaune had killed for the first time. A beat of blue light and the other man fell into two halves. Or even the second time, too. He was drenched in blood. He'd been so casual about it, he was even joking around a little. It made me wonder if it was the second time or just the second time I knew about.

However, Blake's Adam was an obsessive creature, that was the portrait she painted of him, and maybe Jaune was too, but obsessive was the polar opposite of traitorous. It didn't match up. If Jaune was like Adam, he should have been killing for our cause, not turning on us. That's what didn't add up about it. It's why even with Blake's story I was willing to stick to my guns, so to speak.

And Jaune was obsessive.

He was crazy about Cinder and getting his revenge. The only thing that held him back from jumping her at Haven was me and his similar obsession for me.

Salem did something to Jaune. She must have. It was the only way Blake's story lined up. It was the only way Jaune's personality matched his actions. No matter what he was offered he would have said no. He would never turn on us intentionally. Something else must be at work.

I brushed my hair back and rubbed the smooth handle of Crescent Rose. I listened to our cart troll along, bumping against the smooth road.

Jaune was out there. He was waiting for me to save him. There was nothing in this world to stop me from worrying about him. He was somewhere, maybe bringing the relic to Salem. Soon he'd be even further in her clutches and here I was going away more and more.

I missed the sound of his voice, the deep baritone. I missed his arms around me. I missed his plans, his mind. I missed his aura, a comfort that nothing else could replicate and replace. Nothing else delivered on that.

We moved towards the military base, a distant part of the city. A reminder of Atlas's strength but far enough away to keep it out of the denizen's minds. They didn't need to be reminded constantly about war and the power of the gunships. Just the occasional touch would do to secure the place mentally.

We approached the gates to the place. Two guards in Atlesian drab met us at the entrance through the bars.

"Hey we need to secure passage to Atlas." I began. "Can you help us?"

"I'm know Ironwood, we work together."

"Impossible. Besides-"

"The borders are closed," one guard continued.

"No one in or out of Atlas."

"Come on, you didn't even hear us out." Yang shook the bars.

"Our orders are clear."

"The Mistral-Atlas borders are closed."

"Please have a good day."

"But-" Yang began.

"A good day," They said in unison.

"Hey if you don't want to believe that I'm friends with Ironwood-"

"-General Ironwood."

"Right. General Ironwood." Qrow continued. "But look we've got Weiss Schnee with us and we're trying to get her home safely."

They cocked their heads and said together. "Approach."

Weiss gave us all a helpless look. Blake managed an encouraging nod.

They examined Weiss for a long pause. Making sure she was indeed Weiss, probably. She was Weiss so they leaned back and shared a glance.

"Very well-"

"-You may speak with our commanding officer."

"We will fetch her at once."

They marched away in synchronization. With a "Hup-hup-hup-hup-" never let it be said that they didn't take their jobs seriously.

"They were kind of-" Blake began.

"Super weird?" I finished. "Uh-yeah."

"Keep it together. This may be our best shot at getting into Atlas."

"Ms. Schnee, you remember the code phrase you're supposed to give James when you see him?" Ozpin asked.

Weiss nodded.

"Very good. Qrow is correct. You stand the best chance of passing a message along to him. It is likely the rest of us will have to remain here. We will see about finding lodging after meeting with this officer."

"Introducing-" we tried back to the young men working the gate. "Special Operative Caroline Cordovin!"

They stood aside to reveal a short elderly woman with a metallic glint in her eye.

"Hello Operative Cordovin. I'm Weiss Schnee." Weiss gave a little curtsey as she introduced herself.

"Indeed? I've seen the special report informing us to keep an eye out for you. Plus you look ever so much like your sister. We're both Special Operatives so I know her."

"Is that so…" Weiss trailed. "It is imperative that I speak with General Ironwood and secure passage for myself and my companions into Atlas."

"If I may ask, why must you speak to the general?"

"I have a special message for him. His ears only."

"I see… well I'd be happy to secure your transit into Atlas. I've even been ordered to do so given the opportunity but I have no orders for anyone else. I'm afraid your companions will have to stay here until I receive directions to the contrary."

"Very well. If I could just speak to Ironwood I'm sure that he would allow them special passage."

"Unfortunately communication between here and Atlas is limited. He trusts me to run things as I see fit." She looked over the back of her fingernails as she humble-bragged.

"Just me, then. How soon can you have an airship ready?"

Caroline nodded to her men and they opened the gate for Weiss. They closed it behind her and I watched her go on, alone. My heart ached for her but we knew it might come to this. It would be fine. Just for a few days.

I was still worried about her. I knew how much she would hate being alone but she was a big girl. She could tough it out. Besides, the fate of the world was at stake. I'd see her again.

"Well that's settled," I said. "For now at least."

"Come on kids, let's find a place to spend the night." My uncle turned on mechanical legs and strode down the street.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We marched through the city, searching for an inn we could stay the night at. We rounded a corner and that's when they jumped us.

They came down off the roof in unbelievable unity. Three girls, in masks and balckware came out of the night.

I spun Crescent Rose into it's full form before me. Just in time to block the slash of a knife in my directions. She backed away and fired a gun at me twice. Dagger and gun, she summersaulted through the air at me. She fired the pistol in my face and lashed out with the knife at the last second.

"Where's the relic?" She demanded. Her voice was sosft and urgent. She couldn't have been much older than me. She was probably a shade younger, in fact. That or she was incredibly lithe. I struck out at her with Crescent Rose but she-she sort of ate the attack against her body. Her aura flashed with red and blue flames. She grunted with it, a sort of moan.

I fired a shot into her body and she rolled with it. Purple aura flaring over the site of the attack.

She lashed out at me with her knife, trying to slash me. She did a rolling sideflip with it, bringing it around her body and trying to cut me. She tried to breach my range but I disappeared and reappeared a few steps back.

They attacked all of us together. One had a sword with two parallel blades. The last had a set of gauntlets with knives attached to the tips.

They were fast, strong, and skilled, flipping over us and taking us by surprise. My uncle rotated his weapon into play and clashed with the sword user who flipped between him and Oscar. The last engaged Blake and Yang simultaneously.

They all had blonde hair tied up and their masks revealed blue eyes like crystal.

It all seemed incredibly familiar.

I lashed out again and she ate my attack with her aura once more. The blue and red flames wreathed her and burnt at me. It made me take a step back and yelp with pain.

She sort of floated in place as she took two shots at me with her pistol. Her other hand coming up to stabilize with the knife underneath.

She lashed out with the knife as she got closer and I had to say she was good at getting into my guard with her narrow flips and small attacks.

She came up to me and did a sort of kick flip right in my face that nearly connected with my chin. She jumped and kicked at me again with her narrow feet and forced me backwards away from the lashing limbs.

I hit her with the back end of Crescent Rose, knocking her to the asphalt, but she just jumped back to her feet. She jabbed at me two times with her knife, ultra fast, and shot at me again.

I slashed, twirling Crescent Rose at her and bringing my body with it in a whirlwind of attacks. She flipped end over end away from me and I realized she was trying to draw me away from my friends and I held firm. I took a few potshots at her but was careful shooting in the middle of a city. A missed shot could kill a bystander easily.

But then a ghostly specter of red and blue appeared around her body. It lashed out in time with her kicks against me, increasing the force and bashing me back. It had strength beyond her small body. It flared blue and red around her. It didn't seem to keep her safe from harm.

She flipped at me, knife in hand and a crescent of red followed it as the specter which hovered over her, lashed out, overlapping her attack with it's own claws. Instead the monstrous ghost was augmenting her attacks. It was nearly eight feet tall and was a menace of red and blue light.

The girl with the sword flared purple with soft lightning as well and her speed seemed to increase as she flipped through the air, lashing out against Oscar with her blade before leaping back to deal my uncle a blow. She twirled in the air with grace.

She caught Oscar's cane between the blades of her sword. She swung it away and Oscar's cane went clattering down the street. The girl with the sword jumped and slammed both feet into Qrow's chest and knocked him to his knees. He was still unsteady on his new legs.

Blake and Yang seemed to have the situation under control the most. They dealt their attacker a rapid team attack that slammed her against a brick wall. Yang's fists were bared and at the ready. Blake vanished into shadow and let Yang hit through where she used to be to knock her against the wall again.

Yang lashed out with her fist and the girl only narrowly ducked under it. Blake slashed at where she was going and caught the girl on the side. It knocked her to the ground.

Blake tossed Yang the ribbon of Gambol Shroud and together they clotheslined the girl.

The lead girl jumped and lashed out at me with her legs and the hovering ghost attacked in time with her. Increasing her strength immensely. Hovering behind her and beating against my defenses in perfect time with the girl in front of me, the specter was hard to keep track of and I swept my blade through it and it did nothing.

"Where is the relic!?"

"We don't have the relic!" I shouted. She knocked me off my feet and down to the ground. The disembodied pressure the specter floating behind her disappeared as she went to help her fallen compatriot.

"Blake look out!" I called.

The girl I'd been fighting dealt her a staggering blow with the spirit in tow. It must have been her semblance, that glowing specter that reinforced her attacks.

She rocked Blake back and slammed her against a wall.

"They don't have it on them, sister." The girl with the fisticuffs said as she was pulled to her feet by the girl with the dagger and gun. "The relic isn't here."

The girl with the dagger and gun growled. She took shots at us while they backed off. Using team attacks and surprising maneuverability to cover one another as they made their way back to the roof tops. They hopped off the walls of one building like ninjas and made their way to the top.

The girl with the dagger and gun stretched a hand down and hauled the girl with the double sword over and onto the roof. Then, as quickly as they appeared, they were gone.

I rushed over to Qrow and Oscar.

"Are you two alright?"

"We're fine. Who were those girls?" Qrow breathed.

"I don't know."

"They looked a little familiar, though." Blake said, she held her hands on her thighs and panted.

"They were looking for the relic." Oscar said. "She kept asking us where it was, over and over again."

"Do you think they worked for Salem?" Yang asked.

"I've never seen or heard of agents who match their description before." Oscar said in an Ozpin like voice. "But it is possible. Perhaps even likely."

The police arrived to the sound of gunshots and we gave them our story. How we were attacked and the real culprits escaped into the night. We spent the evening down at the police station repeating our story over and over again to the local authorities.

"What did they mean by 'relic?'" I was asked by a local cop.

I had to tell him I had no idea. I hated lying like that but what choice did I have?

"They weren't making any sense, officers," Yang said. "They sounded hysterical."

"And what are you trying to do in town?"

"We delivered Weiss Schnee to the Argus military base. Maybe that's what all this is about." I lied.

"If I call up Caroline Cordovin will she corroborate that story?"

"She should. She took Weiss from us. I have no idea why she wouldn't." Qrow muttered.

"And where are you ladies and gents staying in town, in case we have more questions and need to get ahold of you?"

"We're not staying anywhere yet. We were looking for a place when we were attacked." Blake explained. It felt like she was saying that for the dozenth time.

"Why don't you give me your scroll numbers? Then we'll let you go on free."

We handed over our numbers and were let out into the very late night.

"Aw man, we're never going to find a place to stay now." I said.

"We should just be glad everyone made it out of that fight okay." Blake murmured. "It was a good thing they were so focused on the relic. They operated like a strike squad. In and out with a non-combat objective."

"But that doesn't make any sense. Why would Salem be trying to take the relic from us. She should know we don't have it." Yang said.

"Unless she doesn't," I said.

"What's that mean?" Yang asked.

"I'm not sure. But it should be a good thing. It means she doesn't know where the relic is."

"You mean she doesn't know where Jaune is? How could she not?" Blake asked.

"It is curious." Oscar or maybe Ozpin put his hands on his cane and leaned on it. "Enemy disorientation is a good thing. I should like to capitalize on it but I'm unsure how. We are missing many details that would set this all straight."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	46. Proud Ice Queen IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was a cold long ride to Atlas. Cold. And long. I said nothing to the pilot and he said nothing to me. I just sat with my luggage on my lap in the back of the plane. I had nothing but my thoughts to keep me company as I got closer and closer to my home kingdom.

I sat and worried. What if the General didn't let Ruby and the others join Ozpin. My fears weren't as dissuaded as I wanted them to be.

The worst part was I was an overthinker. I over-thought about it the whole way there. It was an eight hour flight, no less. And I had nothing but depressing thoughts to keep me awake and aware.

"Atlas ground control to unidentified vessel. Please identify," came through the radio.

"This is XTR-niner-niner-ought-two. Callsign ought-five-six-six-niner-eight. We've got Weiss Schnee onboard. Requesting permission to land."

"Granted. Did you say Weiss Schnee?"

"Affirmative."

"We roger that XTR. We'll have company waiting for you."

We came in low over the floating city and swept in for a landing near Atlas Academy.

The plane hovered to a stop and descended. With it descended my stomach. I was alone and hundreds of miles from Ruby.

The back of the ship opened. I stood with my things and departed at once.

"Weiss? You're alright." An even voice availed me.

It was my sister surrounded by armed robots and waiting near the airstrip. She was as tall as ever with crystal blue eyes and snow-white hair.

My sister sounded relieved.

"Winter." I acknowledged. "It's good to see you again. I've got a special message for General Ironwood. It's urgent."

"For Ironwood?" She asked. "What could you possibly need to talk to him about? Weiss the general is a busy man-"

"It's about the maidens. And the relics. He'll make time for it. I am sure," I hedged a working bet. My sister was in a position to know about Ozpin's secrets. I was willing to bet that she did, now that I knew myself.

The only beings within earshot were machines and they'd never tattle on us to anyone. Winter's eyes widened with something like shock.

"Oh. Then you must come with me immediately." She led the way into the academy. "How do you know about the relics Weiss? And the maidens?"

"Ozpin told me. But like I said I have to talk to Ironwood. I have a message for him. It's the only reason I took the ship ride here."

She swiped a key card on one of the doors and led me all the way to the headmaster's office. I'd been there before. I knew the way. It was back from when I considered Atlas Academy as an alternative to Beacon and I was given a tour of the place.

"General, my sister says she has an urgent message for you. It's why she came. It's about the relics and maidens."

The general turned to look at me. He looked as I remembered. Maybe a bit more grey hair. The stress of Beacon afflicting him, giving him a bit of Marie Antoinette syndrome. Tall, half metal with a long sleeve over his metal side.

He was sharply dressed as I'd ever seen him. His arms were crossed behind his back, looking crisp.

"I'm supposed to tell you the 'king has castled.'" I told him. His face shifted. Growing at once more interested from confused.

"What? Where?" He demanded.

"Back in Argus with Qrow."

"Ozpin and Qrow…" he murmured. "I'll send a ship there immediately. What's the status of the relic of knowledge?"

"We don't know. We think Salem has it," I answered. "Leonardo Lionheart turned on us. He betrayed Ozpin to Salem."

"That's terrible news." The general steepled his fingers.

"The relic here is safe though, isn't it? Ozpin was worried about this one next."

"It's secure." He said so quietly I had to strain to hear him. "What about the spring maiden."

"She fell. Cinder Fall, the new fall maiden became the new spring maiden. She's very powerful now."

"That's even worse news."

"Yes… sir, about my friends with Ozpin… will you allow them into the country?"

"They know about the relics and maidens as well?"

I nodded crisply. I felt almost like I was a young girl talking to my father. It was frightening.

"Then it can't be helped." He nodded. Lights on his implant flickered. "You did well to bring me this information. We'll see about getting you set up in a room within the academy. You should rest easy, now. I'll handle things from here."

I exhaled a sigh of relief.

"There's more, sir." I began. He'd begun to turn his attention away from me and hesitated. "We were betrayed by a student too. Ozpin suspected he was a sleeper agent. A man named Jaune Arc. I'm not sure if that matters to you but it's something to be aware of. He's the one with the relic of knowledge. We think he's bringing it to Salem. He's very dangerous. I also have the identities of two more of Salem's agents. A Tyrian Callows and Hazel Rainart, I have their fighting styles, weapons, and a description of them both."

"You've been through a great deal…"

"No more than anyone else since Beacon's fall and Black-Out day," I dismissed.

"Even still I had hoped to keep people as young as you out of the conflict. I wasn't so successful myself. You know Penny Polendina."

"It became a necessity. Ozpin was out of options after he died. He's in a body called Oscar now. And yes sir, I know her. She's alive?"

He smiled and nodded. "You can tell Winter about Salem's agents. It's good to hear from Ozpin. I'd been worried. I must arrange for his and Qrow's extraction," he phrased it like a kind of order and I had to resist the urge to give some kind of salute. My own military background having been raised in Atlas at the forefront of my mind.

"And my friends." I interrupted. It was a bit of a sticking point for me, I overcame my desire to salute and intruded anyways.

"Yes, of course," Ironwood agreed. He seemed to sense my anxiety about it. His voice was unusually gentle.

"Come with me Weiss," Winter said. "I'll tell you about the winter maiden and the staff of creation, if that's alright, sir."

Ironwood dismissed us with a curt nod and Winter snapped off a salute before gently pulling me away.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Winter led me beneath the school to the vault. There the staff of creation hung and suspended with it was the massive chunk of earth and ice the city floated on top of. "So the staff is what keeps the city floating? I always thought it was dust."

"That's the official story. But Ozpin showed the previous headmaster how to use the staff to levitate the city."

"How's this possible?" I was still tired from the flight but I had energy enough to be amazed at one of the relics in action.

"The staff is an unlimited source of power. Although it's limited to one task at a time. It and it's vault are set up in a circuit with the engines to help the city hover."

"That's amazing. It costs nothing and keeps the city safe. The relic of knowledge was similarly incredible."

I was able to look out and see gondolas on guide wires to the lower city.

"Oh?"

"It allows the user to ask any question of the lamp. Only three questions every one hundred years. We're afraid of what Jaune will do with it."

"Your friend who turned on you?"

"Yes." I breathed. "It's been hard."

"How are you holding up with that knowledge?"

"I've been difficult. My best friend was in love with him. _Is_ in love with him. His betrayal came out of nowhere."

"Are you sure the rest of your friends can be trusted? You were rather insistent that your teammates join us here."

"I trust my teammates with my life."

"As you trusted this Jaune?"

"As Ozpin trusted Leonardo. Mistakes happen," I defended.

"Leonardo was a coward," Winter turned her nose up. "You could smell it on him."

I walked up and pressed a hand against the vault. The staff of creation was a beautiful object. A blue crystal wreathed in gold and mounted on a pillar of bronze, it was gorgeous. I'd only gotten a glimpse at the relic of knowledge but it was similarly intriguing.

"My teammates aren't cowards. And neither was Jaune. He was obsessive. That was his downfall."

"You defend him in this?"

"My partner and I think Salem did something to him." I stepped away from the crystal of the vault.

"Your partner who is in love with him?"

"That's right," I was adamant. "I know it sounds crazy. I know it sounds like an entangled mess of emotions but there are things about it that don't add up. Inconsistencies in his betrayal and personality which make no sense. I believe in her. I believe in him."

"You're right. It does sound like an entangled mess."

I glared at my sister. "Jaune was obsessive and one day he was killing and dying for us and the next he was turncoat."

"Traitorousness is the hardest to wrap our minds around because it often comes from those we least suspect. Betrayal is by its very nature unexpected."

"Maybe. Do you want to hear about Salem's other agents?"

"You've yet to give me a description of Jaune Arc."

"Tall, blonde, and muscular, blue eyes and about six-foot-one, maybe six-foot-two. He uses a broadsword that can turn into a shield with a longsword."

Winter sighed. "Weiss…"

"His semblance is called Limit Breaker. It's a charge which let's him elevate to a form where he is stronger and faster. He can do all manner of things with the charge. Fly, for example. And spend it on an attack or movement."

"Weiss it sounds like you, too, are muddled in this."

"I'm doing alright."

"Are you?"

"I-" I hesitated. "I liked him. As a person. The personality he developed. Who he became. The sacrifices he was willing to make for us. I got comfortable. It took me by surprise. Caught me off guard. He used to fancy me and I always felt like a good judge of character. He changed between Beacon and when I saw him again. I liked what I saw in him."

"And your friend?"

"She's hurting but we can get through it together."

"It's as I said. You're ensnared. You're too close to the issue. You need to look at things dispassionately."

"I don't know if I can do that with this. Could you do it if it was someone you cared about?"

"I have my duty," Winter insisted.

"Easy for you to say now." I sounded tired to my own ears. I didn't believe Winter. Maybe she never let herself get close to someone. It would be easy to do if you never had to try, I suppose. "I thought I'd be able to do it too. Now that it's happened to me it's clear that I can't. I have to stand with my partner."

"You're in pain."

"That's life." I pulled at my ponytail and tightened it.

"I hate seeing you like this. It sounds like you're not letting it go."

"I can't release it that easily. Jaune had a partner who died. He talked about getting revenge for her against the agents of Salem. We even talked about how he wanted to be able to let go for her. I think I understand what he meant now."

"I see. You're unwilling to compromise on this issue."

"I am." I agreed. "If time heals all wounds then I need more time."

"Tell me about the other agents of Salem."

"You already know of Cinder, the spring and fall maiden. She fights with glass and dust woven into her clothes. She's incredibly dangerous. Even before she added the spring maiden's power to her own. Jaune fought her before then. His power made him nearly as lethal."

"We have records of her. You keep coming back to Jaune."

"He's intertwined in my story," I dismissed easily. "Tyrian Callows is a scorpion Faunus. He fights with clawed submachine guns. His aura is purple. I fought him at Haven. His eyes are gold and his hair is brown. Hazel Rainart is eight-foot, maybe taller. He fights with his fist and by infusing himself with dust. He has brown hair and brown eyes."

"Do you know either's semblance."

"When I fought Tyrian I didn't catch it. Ozpin said Hazel's was a pain-numbing agent. It allowed him to infuse himself with more dust than your average person could tolerate."

"You've been through a lot since you left father's estate."

"You have no idea. You mentioned the winter maiden."

"I did."

Winter led me back through the Atlas Academy. We arrived at a medical facility. We passed armed guards, security cameras, and robots. A door slid open before us and she gestured inside. I followed her direction and looked down through what I could only assume was a one-way mirror.

"This is Fria."

She pointed down at a woman in a cot. There was a sink and kitchenette in the room as well as two tubes with cables between them.

"She's the winter maiden." I identified.

"She is. She could pass any day now. Until that happens I'm the only person she's allowed to see."

"Then Ironwood's chosen you. You'll be the new winter maiden. Cinder will come after you."

"You believe she won't stop at two?"

"She didn't stop at one. Why would she slow down now?"

"I suppose…" Winter mulled that over.

"How long have you known?"

"Since Beacon fell."

"And that doesn't bother you? Ironwood groomed your entire military career just for the purpose of becoming a maiden. Don't you feel like you never had any choice? And you want to lecture _me_ about things getting muddled? Jaune mentioned to me that Ozpin was probably looking at me and my team to be maidens and it set off red flags for me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. My team and I are ideal candidates. Powerful, talented, and already armed with knowledge."

"It did bother me at first. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw it as a privilege. It's a chance for me to do some real good for Atlas, for Remnant."

"I think you're ensnared by the general. Closing the borders down rather than helping the rest of the world, what is he thinking?"

"I-I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to tell you. There is a greater plan in play, I assure you, Weiss. Things are not as short-sighted as they may seem."

"I should hope not. Ozpin said he was worried for Ironwood next. If Ironwood starts going against Ozpin's orders things will be bad to say the least. Closing the borders is only frustrating things between Atlas and the rest of the world. Ironwood had better have a plan, and it had better be a damn good one."

"I'll see about getting clearance to talk about it with you."

"Thank you."

"I agree with the general's plan. I hope that you will too. Now I must ask what you intend to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're in Atlas. You're a huntress and from the sound of things you're never going back to live under father."

"Never again. No," I said, quiet but sure.

"So what will you do?"

"I'll do what my team and I have been doing. Protecting and serving the people of Remnant."

"How?"

"There's bound to be no shortage of jobs for those of us in the know. The Grimm are always coming. Salem's agents are at the gates at all times. My team and I have seen them. Those real monsters of humanity."

"You won't go back to school?"

"If I went back to school it would only be to teach. And even then…" It wouldn't be anytime soon. I wanted to fight.

"That would be a good career choice for you." Winter smirked.

I nodded. "For now, though, I just don't see it."

"Very well. I'm sure the general will be happy to have you and your team aboard."

"I'm sure he will be. Team RWBY is a force to be reckoned with."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	47. Midgar I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We left Wutai behind weeks ago and sold the horse in Shumi at the same vendor that I'd bought it from with a considerable mark down.

I didn't really care much about that.

Instead I cared about securing an airship in Mistral. Which we did after the train ride from Shumi.

"You're going to be able to fly this thing?"

Neo nodded. Our relationship changed slightly after Wutai. She knew that I wasn't blowing smoke about my origins. She knew I wasn't lying about Mother's control over my mind.

She knew how dead serious I was and a bit more about how fucking crazy I really could be.

Good.

Don't cross me, Neo. I'm not a man whose bad side you want to be on. Don't believe me, just watch.

We walked out on an air-pad together in Mistral. We climbed aboard our small military freighter together. It was a small ship with the Mistrali cockpit to it and a bit of Atlas inspiration in the geometry of the wings.

She strapped herself into the pilot's seat and bit back a bit of yawn.

I sat back in the cabin and kicked my legs up. I pulled out the little black book we'd gotten from Merlot's laboratory and began to read through it. My new favorite pastime.

There I was, notes on me and how my skeletal structure was forming. Sketches of me at different stages of my development. It was the closest thing I had to a family picture book.

"You know where to be able to land this thing in Solitas?"

She shrugged at the same time she nodded.

"Good. We'll get there and the first thing we'll need is data, not money." This plane had run me a few hundred grand but I still had a few million Lien. A small fortune.

Neo still had all of her money from the last one. I'd run the lion's share of our expenses out of my pockets.

"That means heists regarding that most valuable of commodities."

She gave me a backwards glance as she started the plane up.

"No, not water Neo. Don't be ridiculous."

She rolled her eyes at me.

"Its information. Unfortunately my semblance doesn't give me a million eyes and the ability to hear and see shit across the city. I'm just good at smashing kneecaps. So that's what we'll have to do."

"I want to know what Ironwood is up to. I want to know if there is a maiden in Solitas. I want to know where she is, if she's there. I want to know how she takes her tea or if she drinks coffee. She'll either be summer or winter, because Cinder is fall and spring."

I read through a few notes of how my musculature was tested through dance while I was in the tube. My father hadn't wanted me to know how to fight but needed a way to test my movement. Dancing was good for that while floating in embryonic liquid.

It also gave my nervous system the tests he felt it needed.

The fucking sicko.

Neo held up her scroll at me with some typed words.

"Ice-cream?" I asked, reading aloud. "Sure we can get some when we land. You've more than earned it. We'll find like a cafe, get you a sunday if you want."

She gave me a glittering smile and ran through some preflight checks. She flipped a few switches I could only guess the purposes of.

"Yeah yeah you're an old fashioned ice-cream girl. I should have guessed."

I pulled out my pipe. I started to pack it and my mouth watered slightly. Neo turned on the no smoking light in response. I grumbled and stowed the pipe in my pocket again. She just gave me a smug grin.

"This is how you repay me?"

She held her nose.

"Yeah I guess. A bit stuffy in here. Can't exactly open a window, either. I have to wait to smoke and you've got to wait on that ice-cream. Is that it? Fair enough, I suppose."

The bullhead took off with a hovering heave.

I read a little more out of my little black book in Merlot's tight scrawl.

_Subject has been implanted with memories of living in the areas surrounding Vale. I avoided giving him memories of nearby locations in the event that he escapes. _

That cruel son of a bitch.

_He spasms and calls out for his mother. I can only assume he means Salem. It appears she is imparting him with some memories of her own, she does so even as I write and sleep. I should like to find out more. What all she leaves him with in addition to my own vat training creates an unpredictable specimen, however. I fear letting him out of the tank and it's doubtful we could have a reasonable dialogue. I wonder if Salem would pay a price to have him. _

_It may be a method to acquire more of her cells. A trade of sorts, for this son. She already gave up some cells for inferior Grimm specimens I created. It may just be possible._

At some point the text just ended. With no mention of how I ended up in Vale with a sword or even the falsified huntsman records. I could only guess at how that happened. Salem claimed to have had a bit of role in that. Making sure I infiltrated Beacon and was on my way with Ozpin none the wiser but I was no closer to figuring out how she'd done it.

Perhaps she took Merlot up when he tried to sell me back to her and used yet another of her agents. It was unclear.

What was clear was that I was a bit of a mess. A bunch of accidents had created me and left me in the state that Merlot had dubbed a partial failure. Salem had been poisoning my mind before I left the womb, so to speak. It was possible she continued to poison me in my dreams now.

And with that terrifying thought I closed the book and tried to get some shut-eye as the plane flew.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We landed in Solitas in the depths of a pine subarctic forest. Neo put us down in a clearing and the plan was to hitch a short ride to Mantle by train or car in a nearby township.

It was the borders of Solitas that were closed so now that we were on the northern continent I didn't expect that we'd encounter resistance to our arrival.

"You're not wanted here, are you?"

Neo shrugged.

I took that as meaning, 'if anyone recognizes me.' So probably no more than in Mistral. We'd walked around pretty freely down there so, again, I didn't expect much trouble.

"You've got disguises to you, too, though." She rolled her eyes and they turned green and her hair switched to black before they all shifted back to their natural colors.

I nodded and set about unfolding a tarp over the top of the airship to protect it from the elements. We couldn't exactly get it close to the city without alerting Atlesian air-control to our presence.

Neo was mute and couldn't respond to air traffic controllers and we didn't know the appropriate communication codes to fly into the airspace, besides.

The whole place was in a state of lockdown, unlike Mistral and Vale, and they'd probably shoot us down if we didn't skirt the edges. I'd been worried a patrol might head us off and start shooting at us even as far away as we'd flown.

I tied the tarp tight over the ship with bungee-cords and refueled it from the dust supply we'd brought in the back of the ship. It took powdered burn, and a hefty amount of it too but we couldn't exactly refuel around here.

It took us a bit of a hike to get to the nearest township, Senew, we'd had to land far enough away that no one could have seen us.

I marked the place we landed on the map on my scroll so we wouldn't lose the airship. It would be hard to find again unless we knew where to look. And that's assuming it didn't get buried under snow in the meantime.

I marched through the snow drifts. My clothes which had been a stray too hot down in Mistral under all my armor were more at home here. The thick cape didn't help with getting through the drifts but my boots were key.

Neo had to step along through my foot prints, following me. She was short enough that I was worried I might lose her if she had to mark her own trail. I had to resist the urge to laugh at her tiny form as she struggled through the snow, something I knew she wouldn't take well.

I lit my pipe and eventually we made our way to Senew.

I found a small cafe and ordered Neo ice-cream, just as I'd promised her. I wasn't sure if she'd change her mind because of the cold weather but she seemed content with her selection. It couldn't have been a popular order in this cold. She deserved a treat after flying all the way here and then hiking a few kilometers in the snow, though. I ordered a hot coffee and we sat together in the cafe.

"Are you sure you won't be cold?"

She nodded.

"It's just that you're so small. And your ice-cream is so large." It was a decently sized sunday topped with a banana and hot fudge. I suppose that the hot fudge might help with the cold.

She kicked me under the table.

"It's adorable."

She kicked me again.

"Alright, alright. It's not adorable."

She glowered.

"I just can't win with you, can I, Neo?"

She gave me a look that said 'you're not even trying to win with me.'

"Fair enough. So this is Solitas. Looks bleak."

I listened to the wind through the window of the cafe. It was howling. It might whip itself up into a blizzard and I didn't want to be caught up in that.

"Do you think things will be better in Mantle?"

Neo shook her head.

"So it's pretty desolate there, too."

Neo nodded.

"You've been? Well once we're there we'll need to narrow down our search for the maiden. Probably in a Atlas, at a guess. Probably in a bunker if Ironwood has his way."

Neo nodded and took a bite of ice-cream.

"But bunkers don't much matter to you, do they Neo? We'll find her. Even if we have to break into every bunker in Atlas."

I was tempted to light my pipe again but there was a man near the Cafe's bar wiping down tables and I didn't want to do anything noticeably illegal within the first few hours of landing here. Mary Jane was a prohibited substance all across Remnant and the cafe probably had rules about smoking and I didn't want to be thrown out, at least not before Neo had finished her ice-cream.

_Come to me, child…_

The wind whispered and with it came a cruel voice.

_My child. My little puppet. You will bring me the relic. _

My hand fell to my side and patted the relic where it hung. It still had two questions left. I considered using them on Cinder's whereabouts. Or that of the remaining maidens.

I had so many options. So many questions. I'd only ever get two more answered. There were so many secrets about my own life I'd never get answers to if only due to the opportunity cost of getting any two answered.

And that was if I didn't ask about the maidens. Or Cinder. Or Ozma. I knew so little. Perhaps I was just a puppet with Salem pulling the strings.

The hidden truths about how I came to be in Vale alone held a dozen questions. Why had she sent me to Vale. How had she done so? Where was Merlot now? Where were my sisters? How had they come to be?

On instinct I'd burned one of my questions because I needed to know how to deal with Salem. I had a loose plan for that. Destroy her body so completely that she could never reform. Scatter her remains across this world such that she'd never take possession with her feet ever again, let alone her mind. The relic had indicated that such a thing was indeed possible. I just needed to get close enough to do it.

It took me forever to muscle up the courage to use the thing. Even looking at it reminded me of Ren and Nora and what I'd done to them. It felt wrong for me to be the one using the questions for that reason. Once I'd cleared my mind of the bloodlust I had only one choice in moving forward. To use the relic. So I did. And I'd burnt one of my valuable questions.

I could ask how to resist her commands so that I could actually strike at her without her dominating my mind. I could ask how else I might be able to defeat her. There were so many options. So many choices. I found myself paralyzed by the sheer number of them.

And I had only two left.

Finding out Salem was immortal had been a kick in the gut. But it wasn't so bad knowing that she could still be stopped. Still be delayed. I could still shut her down. She could be wounded.

And like a god of a myth of old, if I scattered her pieces fine enough, she would never return to power. It was just a question of breaking her hold over me. I couldn't cut her into bits if she controlled my thoughts.

So what questions should I ask the relic? Should I even ask it anything? A good question, one I'd ironically like the relic to answer.

I could also ask about the other donor who'd created me. My surrogate. It was a mystery I may never have the answer to any other way.

I sighed and stood up, I slammed back my coffee. Neo was finished eating and I had a train to catch.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We took the train ride into the city. I watched Atlas loom overhead. A giant rock with engines dangling beneath. The gondolas and their cables stretched to the upper city like a spider's web. Hovercraft swarmed the floating rock. All in atlesian design and bearing atlas' colors.

I knew a little of the place's history. How Atlas had been set up above the city of Mantle. I know about how some had been left behind.

The lower city was dirty. It was mostly a giant slum with buildings pacted too close together for comfort. I looked out the window as we rode in on the place. I imagined a lot of people worked in the upper city and commuted there each day from down here.

The cobbled streets were packed with vendors in a way that reminded me a little of Mistral's middle and lower levels.

It must be hard to see such affluence then to come back down here day in and day out.

There was a quiet resentment to the place. Angry about the rock that hung above. A constant reminder of haves and have-nots.

We shuttled past a dust mine in the middle of the city. A large open-pit thing that seemed to threaten hunger. As though on a bad day it might stretch it's maw wide and swallow the place whole.

I only caught a narrow look as we bulleted past the famous dust mines of Mantle. It looked like the kind of place no one would choose to work in. It was about needs.

There were faunus every which way you looked. The racial segregation couldn't have been more prominent any where else in the world. The upper city, that's for humans, the lower city, that's for faunus. A clear dividing marker to segregate the two based on economic strata now, and social strata in the past.

My life might be a total piece of shit but hey, at least I wasn't a dust miner.

"Come on Neo. Let's find a place to stay."

We found a small motel willing to put up with us. They managed to keep it clear of the soot of the mines. There was a grime to the air which only heavy machinery spinning into the earth could throw up. I imagined how clean and fresh the air in the city above must feel. I imagined trying to raise children in a place like this. I promptly stopped.

I was just making myself depressed and pointlessly. There were real things in my life about this city that should make me depressed. I needed to find a branch of the Malachite or a rival gang organization.

It was at times like these that,l et me tell you, I got the White Fang. Their purpose was a noble one from the sight of the Mantle slums. I could see how and why the Fang were born when I looked out a window here.

"Let's take a tram up."

The upper city couldn't have been more different. It was also built down into the rock it floated on. Atlas Academy, I could see it from our gondola, had windows looking down and out over the wastes. They were dug into the mountainous slab.

There were also taller buildings which stretched upwards. Giving the illusion of some sort of man-made crystal, hewn from a different kind of rock. The city was a geode. Building upwards and downwards into the dull mound.

We landed and made our way off the gondola. We were surrounded by Mantleans working clerking jobs in the upper city. We stood out a little as hunters but only a little. We were given second glances but they were only that.

"I'm not sure I like it here. I think I prefer Mistral to Atlas." I told Neo. I watched busybodies bustle. "At least in Mistral they don't pretend that the lower floors are part of a different city."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	48. Midgar II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Neo helped me find what I was looking for. A place called The Den. I could feel the music even from outside. Neo led me by one hand down a set of long stairs deep into the Atlas rock in her typical silence. The steady beat of techno dance music hammered away at me.

We opened the door to the place and the sound of it rocked me back onto the balls of my feet. I could feel the sound of the music against the hairs on my arms. It was the sort of sound you felt as well as heard. _Wump, wump, wump, wump, wump. _It was like holding a jackhammer against my stomach.

We came out onto a dance floor of black and white. There were rich golden lights that shone down in alternating fashions. The yellow light alternated with purples, whites, and blues and gave the place an otherworldly feel.

It felt like a stranger's dream. Smoke breezed through the atmosphere of the place and the flood lights poured through the stuff. Both nicotine and Mary Jane filled the air. It was thick enough to cut through like butter. It wafted about and was dense enough that I felt like I could peel away at it.

There were people dancing on the floor in front of us. The women wore satin and silk dresses. Short skirts and slitted outfits were everywhere. The men wore white and blue button downs that played hell with my sense of color in the light. They wore black and brown khakis held up by nice looking belts.

Drinks were served around the edges of the dance floor. There were tables lined up against the walls. Red velvets adorned the seats of the first floor. Alcoholic beverages and cash were exchanged over the circular bar near the center of the dance floor and against the walls.

It was gorgeous and full of life. It was nothing like the Malachite's bar back in Mistral's lower floors.

This was a place the good folks of Atlas could use to get away from it all. And boy were they. The dance floor was a mish-mash-mosh-pit. Flailing limbs raved against day jobs as people tried to waste their evening away.

_Wump, Wump, Wump_. The hypnotic tune of the dance music battered away at me. It was the sort of sound you felt as much as you heard.

We walked through the raving limbs of the first floor of The Den.

There were other scents on the smoke. Probably other things being inhaled besides traditional stuff and Marijuana. Flashing lights strobed and warbled through the heavy weight of the air.

Neo was holding her nose. For my part I pulled out my own pipe and took a take. My exhalation was lost to the chaos of the first floor.

Atlesians were everywhere. Taking part in those finer things in life and trying to escape their evening. It was all about booze and dance.

Near stairs leading up to the second floor a man in a black shirt and jeans stopped Neo and I. He was armed with a pistol in a holster attached to the side of his chest. He wore dark sunglasses despite being inside which I kinda understood considering the strobe lights and all. He was about my height and broad at the shoulder but the pistol didn't look huntsman class. _He _didn't look huntsman class.

I could take him disgustingly easily.

I stopped anyways at his gesture. I tried to read his lips as he spoke into a walkie-talkie on his collar but didn't get anything. He pressed a finger into a wired microphone in his ear. He must have gotten a response he was looking for because he stepped aside. He swung a red velvet rope with him as he did.

I blew smoke and felt the relaxation take me over. Nobody wanted a fight in a place like this. Not me, and not this guy's boss.

I ascended to the second floor, away from the raving pit of people down on the first. Up here people were smoking harder things. There were razor blades and lines of hyper ready to be taken. In one corner there was an orgy going on. I watched someone do a shot out of a young girl's belly button, too.

I was starting to figure out why this place was called The Den.

It was a drug den, sure. That too. But it was more than that. It was a place to get away and be animals. It was about letting loose. I found the thought a touch hypocritical considering the racial segregation of Mantle and Atlas.

It was a touch quieter on the second floor and there were couches and balconies strewn about. One such couch with the red velvet covering had a gold haired man sitting on it. He peeked over glasses to reveal golden amber eyes. He was surrounded by security guards in that same black shirt and jeans uniform. He was also wearing a golden suit that I thought was tacky and flashed in the light.

I stepped closer and someone put a gun in my face. I turned to look at him in shock. Not because I found the weapon threatening, but because of the precise opposite. He couldn't kill me with that water pistol.

I blew smoke right in the guards face. Nice, and long. He coughed and I laughed. I enjoyed my little high and it was still loud enough that I couldn't hear my own madness. The whisperings of Mother were drowned out by the sheer volume. I picked at a bug in my ear, though, you couldn't have everything.

The golden haired man waved an arm and the pistol was removed from my grill. The man holding it looked away and rubbed his eyes from the smoke.

I walked up to the man on the couch and pocketed my pipe.

"Aurum?" I asked. The name was probably fake. I knew that. His hair might even be dyed. The suit was a bit hard on the eyes too. But if you were going to call yourself Aurum then you better work for it.

"You know my name but I don't know yours." He pointed to the side of the couch, offering me a seat. I took it and he started pouring three amber shots for himself, Neo, and I.

"I'm Cloud Strife."

"I've never heard of you."

"No one has."

"I know her, though, you're working with Neapolitan. Are you perhaps her new handler? I was wondering what would happen with Roman dead. You seem to fit the bill."

"Maybe a little." I let him read into that as much as he wanted. Neo moved like she was going to sit on my lap but I blocked her to the side, placing her next to me. She sat down on the far side of the wide couch of Aurum from me.

I turned back to Aurum.

"What can I do for someone like you?"

"I'm looking for information on General Ironwood. I want to know the facilities he and his friends visit nearly every day."

He poured himself another shallow shot on the table in front of him.

I took mine. It tasted like oranges and was smooth and rich. It hit the back of my throat like a golf swing.

"The general doesn't have friends, by the by. That's a free-bee."

"Even still."

"I hope you can pay for information like that."

"I can. For every facility he and his associates visit everyday I'll pay you ten grand."

"Oh is that all." His voice came out low under the beat of the music.

"There's extra in it for you if it only started since Black-Out day."

"Well that is interesting," he purred.

"Something catch your attention?"

"Maybe a little," he shot back. Throwing my own words in my face as he did. "There's Winter Schnee."

"Winter Schnee…?"

"Special Operative Winter Schnee. She works closely with General Ironwood. "

"Oh?"

"She visits this special bunker nearly every day. Since Black-Out day no less."

"I can pay you two-hundred grand for the name of that facility and the details on it."

Aurum took his second shot and poured me and Neo another. "Now we're talkin'," he growled. "What if I don't need your money, though."

"What? Do you need people killed?"

"People, plural," he laughed out in a rich baritone. "I like you. No wonder you've managed to capture Neapolitan. You're violent."

"Well we are all products of our upbringing."

"I don't need people killed but I could use Neapolitan's skills."

"What for?"

"A little job. You see some of my men got locked up by Atlas Security."

"Sounds unfortunate."

"They're going to be sentenced to forced labor down in the mines."

Why wasn't I surprised that that was how Atlas dealt with its criminals. You just chuck the dissidents and anyone you can arrest down in the mines and you got yourself a slave labor force.

Gross.

And typical of Atlas. Nobody cares what happened to prisoners. I bet the prison system was for-profit here, even. Anything to make a buck in Atlas. The more the place tried to have redeeming qualities the more I hated it.

I listened to a brief pause in the _wump, wump, wump _of the music.

"You need us to bust them out."

"I need her. I don't need you beyond that."

"We'll see. I'll need the details. What's security look like? When's the transfer?"

"In two days. They're being held in an Atlas police station. Security is tight. That's why I could use Neapolitan's help."

"Their names?"

"A boy named Obsidean. And another called Cobalt." He summoned photos of a dark haired kid with dark eyes. There was another frame which held the blue haired boy with pale eyes.

"We do this for you and those facility details are ours. Everything I asked for."

He held out a hand for me to shake. "It's a deal. What do you say?"

I shook on it and he grinned golden teeth at me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I didn't trust Aurum. I thought he'd double cross me given the opportunity. I didn't have any real safeguards against him doing it beyond the threat of myself and Neo. Which if he knew who she was it was a pretty big threat. If he knew who I was it would be even bigger.

I think that's how shit worked up here. There was as much backstabbing as could be managed. Even still I had little choice but to help him and deal with the consequences later. If he tired to cross me I'd just kill him and torture him and not in that order.

The operation was going to be a simple one. We knew when and where they were going to be transferred on the gondola down to the lower city.

I was going to fly down, open the gondola like a tin can, and we were going to grab them.

Nice and easy. In and out. No questions asked.

We arrived at the station in Atlas and fought our way inside. It was on the under belly of Atlas and had some guards to it. I slammed one to the side with Crocea Mors and jumped kicked another. I was way too fast for some simple guards to stop me. I was just far too strong, too.

"Stop right there!" Neo and I didn't listen to the guard.

We rushed Atlas Sec at the top of the gondola station and made our way down to where the gondola hung. We watched the car shuttle off with our prisoners in question inside. I could see more guards on board through the windows.

The station was all dark greys and blue lights. With a single tram line running down the middle where people could get on and off, it was lit by soft blue and white lights. It was manned by Atlas Security at the moment. I wasn't sure if this station was permanently owned by Atlas military forces or if this was a special occasion. Either way I was crashing their party.

I vaulted a security gate. With ease, my sprint turned into a hovering dash as I went over. I slammed a knee into a sentry's face. He went rolling down.

I grabbed one guard and slammed him against the ground. Then I hammered him into a wall. His armor shattered as I did.

I launched a high kick that brought down a third. It was going very well. Neo came hurtling alongside me and whipped her body weight around an Atlas Security agent's neck.

She teleported ahead of me and knocked another agent's gun upwards while I crossed the gap. I cut his gun in half and pulled the rifle butt out of his hands and smacked him in the head with it.

I swung my sword and knocked down the security officer before me. I kicked down another and punched the lights out of a third hard enough to shatter his helmet. Neo slowly choked out a last and we listened to the sound of communications failing between Atlas on the gondola and up here.

"Report! Soldier, report! What's happening up there?!"

I listened for a moment before I jumped up on the cable with an easy flip. I balanced for a moment and Neo reached out and grabbed a hold of me. I leaned forward and I flew down the cable on a pocket of air at the gondola car.

It took a few moments to reach it with the wind whistling past us in the clear Solitas sky. I felt and heard Neo hold on with bated breath.

I arrived on top of it and sliced into the metal with Crocea Mors as I flew and ripped into the roof so I could start to pull it off. I put the sword on my back as we dangled out over the open air above Mantle. I jammed a hand into the jagged slice I made in the metal and I peeled the metal back as I hovered with a casual strength. Glass shattered and fell down onto the lower city as I pulled the car apart.

Guards inside peppered me with fire but Neo teleported off my back and into the gondola. She jumped around inside bringing down the guards with grace and ease. She swung her weight around and slammed one into the jagged glass where a window used to be. She flipped and shoved another into a twisted bar of metal from where I ripped the roof off.

She jumped up with her umbrella and teleported first Obsidian out to me who I grabbed. Then the other. I reversed my momentum, I was tractionless for a moment as I reversed directions and began to fly back up the thick cable of twisted metal wires. I rode up on the gondola cable and flew back up to the top where we'd already disabled Atlas security.

I watched Neo jump out of the car and begin her descent down with her parasol. We'd meet up later easily enough back at the motel.

I carried the two guys, one in each arm all the way back up to the top of the tram station. I held them by their handcuffs and it was easy enough to glide along the cable back to the station.

We made it look simple, too. No casualties, even. Probably. None up here but I could make no promises about what happened in the car. Neo hadn't exactly been gentle from what I heard once she got inside.

I set the two guys down and flipped to a landing in the grey gondola station. The members of Atlas Security we already disabled were still down.

"Well you're off then." I shattered their restraints with my sword and set them loose.

"What, wait! Who are you?" The black haired kid asked. I called him a kid but he was probably about the same age as me.

"I'm Cloud Strife. Run to your boss and tell him our business is done on my side. Go! Before more security shows up."

I kicked a rousing Atlas Security agent in the head and went back down with a muted grunt.

They bolted and I looked out of the station at the distant form of Neo.

I didn't need to fight my way out. I just charged Limit and jumped off the side of the station.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	49. Proud Ice Queen V

**The Schnee-Shinra analogue is already there so let's let the good times roll. You'll find that Monty did most of the work for this crossover for me, at least in the now, phase. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

My friends were in Atlas after less than a day. It had hurt to be thousands of miles away from them. I waited out on the landing pad for them with Penny. She'd been overjoyed with the news that Ruby was on the way.

The plane set down and my friends came waltzing out.

"Penny?!" Ruby called. She dashed forward and the two met in an enormous hug. I felt a touch snubbed but only a touch. Penny had been killed after all. Ruby was right to worry after her.

"It's so good to see you again, Penny. I thought you were dead!"

"I was!" Penny chirped. "My father rebuilt me."

"Just like that?"

"It wasn't that easy. They are limits to it. But suffice to say I'm back and more combat ready than ever!"

Penny hovered in place on jets from her legs, spinning once, before she landed again.

"That's incredible, Penny."

"My father worked very hard on my new body. He didn't want me hurt again. But enough about me. How have you been Ruby?"

Ruby's face fell.

"Ruby… is something wrong?"

"Yes. A lot." Ruby croaked out. I took that as my cue. I walked forward and put a hand around Ruby.

"You heard about Jaune didn't you, Penny?" I inquired.

"The turncoat?" Penny asked.

Ruby let out a noise of protest.

"Penny, Ruby and Jaune were together."

Penny raised both hands to her mouth. "Oh no. That means..."

"She's still recovering," I said. "It was a short time ago."

"Don't worry, Ruby, I'll help you anyway I can."

"Thank you Penny. And Weiss how were things up here?" Ruby asked, desperate to move on in the conversation.

"They were fine. The whole operation went smoothly. How were things in Argus?"

"We were attacked by these three girls. They were after the relic."

"The relic…? But…" I trailed off.

"We don't know either. Ozpin says it's enemy disorientation."

"You're all alright though, aren't you?"

"Yes, the fight was short and they were focused on their objective. So we all made it out okay."

"But if the enemy doesn't know that they already have the relic what does that mean?" Penny asked.

"It means that they don't really have it," I realized. "They don't know where it is."

"That's what Ozpin thinks too," Ruby agreed. "He's just not sure what to do about it."

"Maybe General Ironwood will have an idea," Penny said. "Here he comes now."

"James," Ozpin greeted. "It's good to see you again."

"And you as well old friend. I have to confess that I feared the worst when Beacon fell," the General responded. He looked visibly relieved and at ease. More so than I'd seen him when I'd delivered the news of Ozpin's return.

"I think we all did," Qrow said.

"Qrow…" the General walked up and looked like he wanted to embrace the raggedy man. Qrow pulled a flask and eyed the General back. The General did a double take and stepped back and looked Qrow up and down. "What happened to you? You were injured. Your legs..."

"I picked a bad fight and got saved by some kids." Qrow rolled a shoulder and looked away. "It happens."

"Well it's good to see you in one piece." Ironwood acknowledged with a nod of his head. "All of you."

"This is a warm reception and so on but I'm afraid there is much for us to discuss. The relics and the maidens, I take it Ms. Schnee filled you in on our end but what about yours. Is the staff safe? And what of the winter maiden? When you sealed the country's borders I feared the worst for you. I thought you may be slipping as Leo did."

"Yes, come with me. Conversations like this are best handled behind closed doors." Ironwood agreed. He led the way off the airstrip.

We followed him into Atlas Academy and to the headmaster's office. The academy was all cool blues and greys laced with silvers. As much of Atlas was.

It was as though the entire city had formed a coalition and which colors they wanted to convey to the world and this was it. The cityscape was laced with those same colors in primary. If my friends thought it was just I and Atlas Academy which embraced them, they would be sorely mistaken.

"Ah here we are." Ozpin said as we entered the headmaster's office. It had a scenic view over Atlas and notably not over Mantle. "Let's start with the winter maiden."

"She's safe. She's in a bunker not far from here. The current plan is to transfer her power to Winter Schnee. The only person Fria is allowed to see each day is Winter," Ironwood responded. "I considered using the same process we were going to use with the fall maiden but this seemed more elegant."

"Very good James. Well done. That means that the relic of creation is safe?"

"It is. And I have more plans. Some for getting communication back up and running between the kingdoms. I plan to use Amity as a satellite. I've already begun to modify the colosseum for this purpose. Using dust supplies to keep it airborne, I believe we will be able to restore communication between the kingdoms."

"Incredible James. This is what you've been working on? You've been very busy."

"Yes. It has been difficult. Listen to me complain like I was the one who was killed. I'm sure you have all had a rough time of it. Ms. Schnee implied as much."

"No more than you," Ozpin disagreed. "This plan of yours is incredible. I couldn't ask for more, except of course…"

"Except what?"

"Opening the country, James."

Ironwood sighed. "I needed to keep her agents out of the state."

"This won't stop her agents. They'll find a way in. The only thing the embargo does is escalate tensions."

"After Amity goes up I'll lift the embargo and open the borders."

Ozpin tapped his staff. "Good enough. I won't press you. When will the satellite launch."

"Four months is the target deadline."

"James you've done so much. I was wrong to put you in the same category as Leonardo."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We were put to work by General Ironwood. I had been right when I said there was no shortage of jobs coming our way.

We worked closely with another group. Ace operatives they were called.

Weeks went by and I watched Ruby get better. The missions were good for her. She grew strong again. And I found myself in love with it. My heart ached for her so much my chest hurt. I knew it would be too soon for her but I knew at some point I needed to tell her how I felt, lest I start avoiding her. She would be able to tell something was off with me.

She had a sixth sense about such things.

Her short hair was cropped to one side in a wolfish fashion. Her hood was done lower on her corset. She was beautiful. Tragedy had turned her into a woman just as I saw it had once turned Jaune into a man. Or whatever it was he became. My feelings about him were obtuse and deeply confusing. I imagined it was worse for Ruby so I kept my mouth shut about it.

I still could see the laughter in his eyes that early morning in Mistral. How could I forget it? Sure he had a harder edge to him but underneath it he still seemed soft.

I knew what Blake thought. I even knew what Yang believed. But even so… even so…

"What's our mission today?" I asked in the briefing room. My older sister was there staring at a data pad.

"You've all been doing great work…" Winter began.

"Here it comes," Yang said.

"So the General believes it's time you had a break. Take the day off. Do whatever it is people your age do to relax. It's as important as fighting the Grimm."

"There it is," Yang finished. She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. She had a thicker jacket on than she used to wear and longer pants, too.

"What about you? Will you be getting any R and R?" I asked.

"Not today. A prisoner break just occurred and it requires my attention. A new face in Atlas our soldiers identified as a 'Cloud Strife.'"

"Never heard of him," Ruby murmured.

"Well he's working with another person of interest. Neapolitan."

"Her we do know," Yang's eyes narrowed. "I fought her once."

"You did? You are certain?" Winter was surprised.

"The umbrella girl? Sure did. Back when she worked for Roman Torchwick," Yang said. "She nearly killed me. Could go for some revenge." She punched her fists together for a resounding _clank_.

"Well she's working for someone new now. She has a new boss. This Cloud Strife character. I don't want you to worry about it. It's becoming my responsibility, however." Winter tapped away at the pad.

Working with my older sister has been a good experience so far. She always shared the big mission details with me where she could and no one was hiding things from us which was a nice change of pace. We were persons of interest too. Just for the good team. It was nice. It was where we belonged. Doing the most good possible.

"If you say so," Blake mumbled. She'd cut her hair as well. She also changed her outfit to better match the cold of Solitas.

"I do. Go out and relax. Hit up a club and dance or visit one of our movie theaters." The words seemed awkward coming from my sister's orderly lips. But orders were orders. If they wouldn't assign us a mission then we had little choice.

"I might just stay in tonight," I said. I might bathe or find a good book and light some candles. Maybe both.

"I'll join you," Ruby murmured. "If you want my company, that is."

I nodded in her direction. I'd been dodging her a little but I did always want her companionship. Besides… this might be my opportunity to talk to her. I had to tell her how I felt at some point. My heart raced a little. Out of a combination of excitement and fear.

"I might go out and dance. I heard of a club some of the men sometimes hit up when they have the day off," Yang said. Yang was used to that kind of life. I remembered she used to go clubbing back in our Beacon days and before.

"I'll go with. If that's all right. I'm not much of a dancer, though." Yang nodded at Blake.

"I can show you some moves. Pretty girls like us just need to avoid moving our arms around like idiots and we look fine," Yang told Blake. "I'm sure you'll look good."

Blake looked away, a tad embarrassed. She rubbed her neck with one hand as she sat in one of the briefing room chairs. "If you say so."

"I do, just relax and enjoy the ride. You're on the Yang train now."

"Can I get off or…?" Blake trailed off. There was a laugh in her voice, however.

"Would you want to?" Yang challenged, a little red on her neck and in her cheeks.

"Perhaps not," Blake blushed. Yang offered her a hand and pulled her out of her seat.

I watched them with a contented feeling in my heart. I'd seen them dance around each other with a small amount of trepidation. They were my team. It was my place to worry about their feelings. Looking at them now I realized I had little to be concerned about. They were approaching the other with care and a little respectful fear.

They would be alright. They were taking their time in exploring each other. That was better than fine.

I just wanted the same to be able to be said for me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I washed at my neck with a wet, warm cloth and sighed. True to myself I'd lit some candles and was sitting next to the bath with my scroll, just dipping my feet in the warm water while I washed my bare back with the rag.

I was wearing my loose nightgown and had my hair still back in its braided ponytail.

I moaned as I dipped the cloth in the water and rubbed at my shoulders. It was good. I held my scroll in one hand and read on it. I knew Blake would say something about an analogue page having superiority but I was a digital girl. That is how I liked to read and it's the hill I would die on.

I moved the cloth against my stomach and shuddered a little as I read from my scroll. It was waterproof so there was really no risk. I even showered with the device everyday to sanitize it. Scrubbing it down with soap like any other part of my body.

Lavender candles were blooming around me. Just two or three. Enough to set the atmosphere while I worked the cloth against my pale skin and let out little noises.

I dipped the cloth in the water and ran it up my long smooth legs. I let out another tired groan.

"Ah…"

There came a knock at the door.

"Weiss it's me…" Ruby's voice came in soft and mellow.

I was decent so… "Oh? Come in Ruby."

She did, closing the door gently behind her. She was in her night clothes too, and she looked like a treat in them.

I turned away and went back to washing myself down with the textile. I felt Ruby watching me for a long moment as I eased it against the skin of my shoulder and back where I could reach.

She sat down behind me and stuck her fingers against my scalp. "R-Ruby." I partly protested.

"Yes, Weiss?" She asked. She slowly started to undo my braid with deft fingers.

I leaned back into her touch as she worked gently against my skin. She was sitting with her body in contact with my own. I could feel her aura. A soft red which matched the tips of candles and the far reaches of her bangs.

I set my scroll down by my side, the device slightly forgotten as Ruby worked undoing my braid.

"I used to braid Yang's hair when we were younger. I've got some practice with long hair. Your hair is so pretty, Weiss," She said, her voice came in low, soft, and sensual.

She worked quietly. Unfastening the bobby pins that held my braid tight one by one. I shuddered as she worked. My head slowly became less and less taut. As she toiled she'd place the bobby pins on the counter by the bath with soft metallic _clinks_.

I could smell her aura. Roses and a touch of something sweet like cinnamon. I breathed it in deep with the scent of the lavender candles. It made me feel light headed, even more so than my hair becoming less rigid and unbound did. Or maybe it was the combination of the two.

Soon my pale hair was all hanging free and the pins I used to fasten it we're all in a small pile by the bath. Her task complete she took the rag out of my hands and dipped it in the water.

She rubbed it against my back softly, in all the corners I couldn't reach. Under my shoulder blades. Near the clasp of my bra. I felt her work her way under the string of it and let out a noise I was partly ashamed of.

"Oh…"

I felt my face flush with heat. I knew a rosy pink would be coloring my cheeks and the beginning and end of my neck.

She rubbed at the back of my neck with it and I pressed back against her.

"I missed you Weiss. You've been so far away from me lately."

"I missed you too Ruby," I choked out.

I couldn't help it. I turned around and took her face in both my hands and kissed her with temperature.

I think she was surprised for a moment but then she gave in and leaned in with a tired drawn out moan.

"Mmmhmmm...mmhmm...Weiss..." She whimpered.

She whispered my name against my own lips and it lit something in my chest. I brushed one hand against her hair and grabbed the back of her head right with it.

_Do it again. _

I thought by degrees.

_Moan my name again. _

For a moment her tongue brushed against my lips. I let my own out a little and where they touched they burned like fire.

"Ruby…" I purred.

I felt her aura flare up and my own did too. I wondered briefly what my own resonance felt like. Her's felt good. Really really good. It touched mine all over and I leaned in a little more. Her aura dazzled against my own flesh and essence. Blazing against my skin and the very heart of me, it was like nothing I'd ever felt before.

A rose petal fell from her aura and landed on one of the wax candles. It burnt up.

My hand touched the inside of her thigh.

"Weiss wait." She broke it off, the burst of the petal burning seemed to be the trigger for it for her. That or my touch. "I'm not ready. I'm not there yet."

I knew she wasn't. I'd made my move anyway. I looked away with some shame.

"I will be. I promise I will be," she tried, hurriedly. Like it was her fault.

"I know you will Ruby. I just wanted you to know." I whispered. "Whenever you are ready I'll be there. And even when you're not I'll still be there for you."

"About Jaune…" I said nothing, just waiting for her to finish. "I-I never thought I'd have to experience life without him. But I feel that way about you too. I don't want to imagine my life without you. I'm just so worried about him."

She was crying a little.

"I understand," I told her.

"You do?" She sounded shocked. Like she was sure I wouldn't have been able to get it.

"I do," I promised. "I think I know how you feel. You were-are attracted to the both of us," I corrected mid-sentence.

"Yes." She whispered. She wiped her eyes and I helped her. "I'm just so confused. Especially with what happened to him."

"I was a little confused as well," I confessed.

"You were?" She sounded incredulous. "But you never liked Jaune."

"I told you I started to see what Pyrrha and you were on about towards the end. He was so hard, yet soft in the center."

She laughed. An honest sound.

"You saw it too, then. What made him so great."

"I also see what makes you so great." I wiped her tears away and kissed her cheeks without passion. "I was… confused a lot. Especially when you told me you were both having sex. I still am confused."

"We'll figure it out." Ruby whispered. "Together, you and me. I just need more time."

"Whatever you need, Ruby."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	50. Midgar III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Neo and I waltzed up on Aurum. I had my pipe clenched between my front teeth and was taking a pull on it long enough to make my head spin. Damn, it felt good. Silence, apart from the soul rending music. True peace with the bugs behind my face.

Cobalt and Obsidian were there and they were armed. Obsidian had a hatchet, red and black, and Cobalt had a machine gun. I could only guess who they were for. They didn't really concern me. I was a tough cookie and Neo was no slouch.

"Well you busted my boys out. I owe you for that," Aurum told me. "Join me. Have a seat."

I did, carefully maneuvering the harness of tools on my back. Neo plopped down beside me, kicking one leg up over the other. I watched Cobalt's eyes watch her legs and snorted a little. Maybe he hadn't seen any action in a while.

I took another long take on my pipe and made sure to blow it away from Neo out of a sense of politeness and professional courtesy.

"You got my information?" I half asked, half demanded. "I want to know about that facility."

"Easy champ. Relax. Have a drink." He poured one out for us. Neo obliged him but I was already cruising. The ceiling and walls were doing at a decent rate in my head. It felt awesome but I didn't need to add to that in case things went sideways.

I tapped my pipe out on an ashtray. "You better not fuck around with me. I'll rip your party pad apart to find what I want and I'll hand you over to Neo. She'll chew into you."

"Don't be like that. I was just going to offer you more work. You did a good job and you're quite the badass from what I'm told." Obsidian shuffled, a touch nervously. Perhaps remembering coasting by guide wires thousands of feet above the ground as I flew him and his pal around. Or maybe he was remembering the way I ripped the roof off his prisoner transport. "I have no intention of pissing you off. I just wanted you to know that there was more I could offer you."

"Like what?"

"Money, for one."

"Not interested," I disagreed quickly. I had millions in digital currency and a few dozen grand in cash.

"Maybe so." He went with it easily. "How about information on the General. I can put you in contact with a group that will let you know what he's really up to. I don't have the details myself."

I reclined. He had my attention. I packed another bowl from my grinder.

"Let's hear about the Schnee and her facility first. Then we can talk about the General."

"Very well. She visits the Sinovial Bunker everyday. It's near the academy. All she does is visit this old lady the whole place is built around. Your guess is as good as mine as to why. I have a few eyes inside but they're not allowed close to the woman. The only person she's allowed to see is the Schnee, which death might be preferable to."

I nodded. It was the summer or winter maiden. It had to be. That made Winter the next maiden if the General's plan went well. Something to keep an eye on. I could set my trap for Cinder around the place.

"Or maybe your guess as to why is better than mine."

"Maybe." I took a toke, keeping the place spinning at an appropriate rate. Not too fast, not too slow. Indica tended to wear off fast.

"Well don't share everything all at once now." He laughed and poured himself another drink.

"I had no intention of doing so. You'd be the one owing me after that."

"So are you ready to talk about the General?" He asked.

"And a few other people. What have you heard about a man named Merlot?" I asked. He frowned and shook his head. "How about Tyrian Callows? Or Hazel Rainart? Or Cinder Fall?"

"The first one rings a bell. He's in Atlas if nothing else. A scorpion faunus, yes?"

I nodded. "He's incredibly dangerous. I have a bit of a vendetta against him. He tried to kill me once."

"He tried to kill _you_."

"I wasn't always such a badass."

"Well if he comes up, I'll leave him to you, shall I?"

"That would be best. He might kill you and torture you for fun. He's a bit of a psycho."

"Well I'm willing to pass on information about all four. In exchange for a favor."

"What do you need me to do?" That's what I was. I was a doer. I got things done for people now.

"A rival gang is moving in on my territory. I need you to stomp them out. It shouldn't be a problem for somebody of your talents."

"You need them dead or just hurt?" I asked.

"Either or. I need them out of my way."

"Tell me more about them."

"They're called the Blue-Hats. You heard of them?"

I shook my head and exhaled smoke. It was quickly lost to the energy of The Den.

"They've got this big hang-out in Cerebri-Plaza. I'll show you." He pulled out his scroll and flicked open a map of Atlas. "They're fucking annoying."

"What do they do?"

"Run drugs mostly. Occasionally they do killings and beatings but mostly drugs. They're my main competition when it comes to hyper."

I nodded along. "And you want me to bust their skulls. Burn their supply, maybe."

"I like where your head's at. I'd rather you steal it for my boys but if you can't do that then go for it and burn it. Sure, why not?" He swallowed some of his drink. "My own boys haven't been able to crack at them, not since they were in prison. But now we have you. And I'd rather things didn't devolve into shooting in the streets. Try and keep it indoors. You get this done for me. And I'll find out about those four. All you want to know. Plus the General's secret project. What do you say?"

I chewed on my pipe and looked at his projected map of Atlas. "Send me their location information."

"What? You going to do it now?"

"I've got nothing better to do. I'll be back before the night is over. Keep my seat warm." If it was just this then it would be easy. Too easy. I sometimes forget what life was like for non-hunters. Considering how long I'd been a hunter.

I'd been at it for nearly my whole life. Practically my whole life. It's just that I was only three years old or so. I've been out of the tank that long, I guess. I was maybe four depending on how you wanted to cut your definition of life, which I realize was a discussion most people didn't have to have with themselves.

That's how long I'd been grown in that incubator to adulthood. Then I'd immediately gone to Beacon, had my aura unlocked, and started fighting.

It was a matter of relativity, I suppose. I'd been at it for arguably longer than Ruby or Yang had been. If it was a matter of ratios rather than time, that is.

"Well you do work fast," Aurum said in his tacky suit.

I stood up and Neo bounced on her heels behind me. "Yep." I told her. "We're off to smash some heads in. Get excited."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was a three story building and I took my time scoping it out. I'd had to pocket my pipe once I got outside of The Den. I was sure I had an earthly cologne, besides.

It was getting on midnight and sure enough a bunch of boys in blue hats came in and out of the building. The closest thing to gang uniforms that really existed besides the Malachites' gear.

It had nice glass windows and music and lights radiated from the inside. It sounded like as much of a party was going on inside as was taking place at The Den. It was too bad Neo and I were going to pop this joint.

I pulled a few red dust crystals and squeezed them until they shattered like I practiced. Then I waved a hand and blew out the windows on the top floor with fire. Screaming poured from the inside. I had told Aurum I was going to burn it and he made it clear he didn't care enough for me to not.

I palmed a yellow crystal and crushed it in my hand. I waved a hand and lightning struck the upper floor and shook the building.

I was going to shake and batter the place with my magic first. Then I was going to strike with Neo beside me. She had her umbrella leaning against one shoulder and was standing next to me, watching me cast my bolt against the building.

The building was all silver greys like much of the Atlas skyline. And it had been built to code with enough distance between it and the nearby buildings that the fire now burning inside wouldn't spread. It was an isolated target.

I activated my semblance. I felt the power flood over and throughout me. I focused my will, my very essence on holding onto the power as long as I could. I glowed blue and hummed with energy.

I reached over my shoulder and drew the bronze and white longsword with the foot and a half long red handle. I spun it in one hand with ease, leaving my shield on my back. The broadsword would only be hampered in doors and I was fast enough that the shield wasn't necessary for these sorts of goons.

I walked up to the burning building and kicked the front door down and in. People came running out screaming and I let them. It was those staying behind to save the product from the burning building I would need to deal with.

A kid with a blue hat turned a pistol sideways at me and shot with atrocious aim. He had red hair and dark eyes. Another blakc haired kid added submachine gun fire to the mix and I rushed forward, hovering inches above the ground.

I slashed Mr. Gangsta to the ground. He fell screaming. Then I cut the submachine gun into pieces and reached my free hand out and grabbed the man still holding the butt of the weapon. I threw him behind me into a wall hard enough to crack it. Both him and the wall, that is.

There were people trying to save boxes from the upstairs fire. Boxes which I could smell were full of greens and it made my mouth water a touch. Unfortunately I couldn't have any of that and I raced at them and sliced the boxes out of their hands.

A knife came up at me which I blocked with my free hand and turned with incredible strength against its user, a brown haired kid with blue eyes. It sank into his stomach and he fell gasping to the stairs. Slumping to the side. Red smeared across his hair and face.

I snatched a pistol out of one of their hands and shattered it by squeezing it. I kicked him down but left him alone otherwise so he could carry the others to safety.

The last man had aura. It was blue and crackling.

I kicked him with both legs and he fell to the side. I bashed him with the pomel of Crocea Mors. I claimed the stairway to find Neo already fighting on the second floor. There were nearly fifteen Blue-Hats up here. I readied my sword and slashed the barrel of a rifle in two and throw the man behind it to the ground. I kicked him in the chin afterwards.

I slashed at another in the gut and he went down holding his chest and letting the blood fly free. I stepped past the dying man and onto the next. I stabbed with the tip of Crocea Mors and met resistance. More aura. I stabbed again and cut once and eventually made my way through it and he fell to the side bleeding.

I came up on a woman in a blue hat and long blonde hair. She was pretty enough with bright blue eyes but I cut her aside anyways with the diagonal edge of Crocea Mors' longsword.

I slammed the hilt of the blade into the skull of another and I pulled out another dust crystal. Yellow. I squeezed it and it turned grey as it broke and the energy came rushing up my arm. I pointed a hand forward and the bolt struck behind where seven of them were forming a foreign line and tossed them about like rag dolls.

Just because I was mostly immune to small arm fire didn't mean I wanted to go up against a firing squad. There were heaps of brown boxes in the corner and I watched the still growing fires consume them.

Neo wrapped her legs around one poor soul's head and flung him back into the flames where he screamed in real pure agony. Getting burned hurts. A lot. Getting burned all over probably hurts a lot more.

I grabbed a blue hat by the collar and picked him up with a casual strength and slammed his head into the ceiling then I tossed him aside. All these guys the fire would probably consume. I went back and stabbed him in the chest. It just seemed more merciful.

I could see plastic packets of hyper, some drown out on tables others still in their boxes. I palmed another fire crystal and let the fire burst forth from it. I was using dust raw. In its most destructive form. I'd heard of sewing it into clothes as Cinder did, I'd also heard of consuming it into the body to be used as a bit of an amplifier. This was either of those. This was the caveman's version of using dust. It was simple and raw.

I was strangely good at it. I consumed a crystal and cast my sword at a group of boxes and let the fires wash forth from the blade. I wasn't even sure I'd be able to hold onto the power very long. Better to use it before it hurt me and let it out.

I was still holding onto my semblance and I glided forward and front kicked a blue hat out of a window. He tumbled through the glass violently and fell the two stories.

The building was starting to cave in on us. Beams from the third floor where I'd sent my first blast were descending onto the second. And I'd set this floor ablaze a plenty.

"Neo! Let's bug out. Jobs done." I told her. The place was falling apart. I slashed at the wall and bounded out into the street and landed in a single massive leap.

I sheathed my sword and brushed ash from my dark clothes. I slapped at my cape where the lamp hung by my side. We made this look easy too. It would have been much harder if I'd been respecting the sanctity of life but who had the time and the power to do that. It would take a near god to go around sparing life in the sort of combat I was in. I could kill, that was abundantly clear.

But how could I minimize the loss of life in a burning building I was attacking? I couldn't stop time or manipulate space. My semblance just made me stronger and faster. And I wasn't sure that Neo would have been on board if I was trying to avoid death all the time. I wasn't sure I could keep her on my side if that was the case.

I released my semblance. Letting my power evaporate into nothing. I'd held onto it for a long time in there. I was sure that with enough practice I'd be able to hold onto the power indefinitely. I might even be able to combine different dust types with it and do all sorts of nasty things one day. For now all I was capable of was raw destruction with dust. I might be able to eat it one day with enough practice. And I had the money for dust and I was in the dust capital of the world.

I'd make time to practice magic. People like Aurum would give me all the targets I could ask for and one life was as inconsequential to me as another. I'd have my share of practice to use the power against.

But when I ran into Tyrian again I wanted to be ready to squash him like the bug he was. And when I fought Cinder again I wanted to have all the tools I could possibly have at my disposal. That meant practicing dust eating. That meant practicing using its raw form and perhaps using it with my weapon to bring out the greatest effect like Raven had done.

In a moment she had turned the tide enough in that fight to escape from me. When I had her dead to rights she'd used dust to leverage enough of an advantage, just enough, to win. I couldn't remain ignorant about dust any longer. I had to learn how to use it for magic.

For now that meant these little things against people like the Blue-Hats. But one day it would mean taking dust to that next level against monsters like Cinder. With enough dust, I could overcome the power of a maiden. I had literally no excuse to stop improving and stop getting better. So in the weeks Neo and I had traveled I practiced.

Yuma had been right to say I was loaded with the stuff. Now I could do minor destruction magic with it. It wasn't enough. It may never be enough but I had to use every resource available to me if I wanted to defeat Cinder. She was two maidens now. I wasn't sure there had ever been such a thing in all of history but she was now.

She also knew how to use dust and glass and gods only knew what her semblance was. She was dangerous. Probably more dangerous than me and more dangerous than ever. I need the edge dust could bring if I ever wanted to defeat her. That was why I brought Neo on board.

I needed to seize every edge.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	51. Midgar IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I descended upon an alley. It was near here that Aurum said Tyrian was seen patrolling. It was down in Mantle and the grime for the mines was already getting in my hair and making it greasy.

I watched a small hotel from the Alley where I was setting up for my stakeout. I pulled my pipe and began to smoke as I watched. The smell was lost in the fumes from the mines. I pushed my hair back up out of my eyes with an open palm.

I was in it for the long haul and I watched people come and go. Hunters, maybe, came in and out of the hotel I was watching.

Neo offered to come with me but I had her infiltrating that Sinovial Bunker dressed as Winter Schnee to see what she could find. It should be fine. If Winter Schnee was anything like her sister she wasn't a talker so I doubted she'd run into trouble.

She just needed to confirm the presence of that maiden then get out. An old woman, Aurum had called her. That was pretty successful for a maiden career. I was willing to bet that, nuch like hunters, most died young.

So that's what she was doing. I was leaning in an alley, relic of knowledge by my side and my half cape pressed against a wall. I waited with my broadsword over my shoulder.

Eventually I was rewarded. Tyrian came crawling out of the hole. He was looking around warily. Like he could feel a predator's eyes on him. No sense in pretending to try and keep an element of surprise. I pocketed my pipe, I let the high ride over me. He was too wary for a sneak attack.

I stepped up and out into the street.

He saw me and he looked surprised.

"You…"

He stepped opposite me in the cobblestone street. Preparing for the eventual violence that would break out in a moment.

"Me." I agreed. I tried it for ominous but I was willing to bet it came off as a touch pretentious.

I could probably have twisted Aurum's arm into making this a favor for him. Serial killers and mad men were bad for business but I wasn't interested. Plus this was personal.

"You're the son of our goddess. My lady told me about you." He crouched down, his tail whipped about over his head slowly. "You didn't bring her the relic," he sneered. "You denied her."

"No I didn't and I'll do it again, too."

"You willfully deny our queen?"

"I certainly hope so. Or else I've been doing it for nothing."

He snarled and brought out his blades. I slowly drew my broadsword and we stared one another down in the middle of the street. I held the comforting weight easily in one hand and put the other in a pocket.

"You still have the relic. It's not too late for you to give in," he murmured.

_Give in_.

A voice in my own head beckoned.

_Give in. _

"No. I don't think that I will," I retorted, both to him and that insistent voice. "I think I'm going to kill you."

He growled and lunged forward, crossing the gap and opening fire on me as he did.

I let a laugh burst from my lips. The sound was a touch insane and a lot bitter.

I squeezed a dust crystal to glass in my pocket and whipped my hand forward from my pocket.

The bolt of lightning struck him but he crossed his arms to defend himself. I slammed into him a moment later, I flew forward on a pocket of air. The combination left his weapons smoking and my blow rang against his weapons and sent him sliding back. It tore up the street a little at his feet.

A mad giggle of his own left his mouth. He grinned at me. "Good. I was worried this would be too easy."

I activated Limit Breaker, the power strummed throughout my body. It was present in the full otherworldly flames that wreathed me.

I pulled a red dust crystal from my pocket. I cracked it and the power ran up my arm. I threw the fire bolt at him and he stepped to the side. It splashed against a brick building further down the street. He let out another insane laugh.

"Your power. I remember." He tapped his forehead. "But you don't know anything about mine."

"My power grows," I said. "Your semblance doesn't concern me." I was bluffing a little. I was a touch worried about his trump card. I still had my own though. I had power in spades with the glow active.

And it was starting to affect my base state. I was able to fly around without Limit Breaker active now. It was growing. _I_ was growing.

I held on to the limits of my soul. The elevated state made the world slow down around me. He fired his machine gun at me and I twirled my blade before me and blocked the bullets easily. It was better than letting him chip away at my aura.

He came at me low across the ground and I flew right at him. His blades came up and met my sword where I tried to hammer him. He stepped inside and tried to get in my guard. It was transparent to me and I blocked and immediately spent my semblance. I slashed him across the chest and followed it up with a flurry of blows and ended it with one last swung across his stomach.

"Ruh!" I grunted as I slung him to the ground.

The scintillating attack knocked him back and I had time to take in the scars on his chest as I knocked him to the ground. I had my own matching set of marks on mine that he left on me when we'd last crossed blades.

I walked slowly forward at him, sword raised. I smirked down at him. I could win this.

I felt my semblance leave me. The power, the rush, was gone. I'd have to fight him fairly until I got my next charge , which was fucking bullshit. I hated fighting my opponents fairly. That was when they could win. I could still get several more Limit Breaks this fight if things went my way.

Our blades met again. And he swept his leg over at my head. I blocked it and he stabbed low with his left hand, then high with his right. Then he cartwheeled at me and brought his stinger at my face which I sidestepped. He jumped and kicked me in the face with both feet.

"Haah!" He called.

I grunted from it. I swept my blade back at him in a wide tilting slash that went shoulder to waist.

He was forced to block and he slid over my blade and jabbed at me with his stinger once, then twice, then three times. His fist glowed purple for a moment and he jabbed it at me but I sunk my sword into his aura for it. And I spun, bringing my blade with me and clotheslined him. He ate cobblestone. I swept my hand by my side and drew out a crystal more of what was becoming one of my favorite types. The energy ones. It was lightning and not fire. The easiest to use raw to greatest effect.

I cast the bolt on him and lightning jumped from me and struck him high. The bolt knocked him back down.

"You don't even want to know why I'm here?" He asked. A lilt of laughter still to his voice. He flipped back onto his feet, nice and low.

"It probably has something to do with the relic up here. And the maiden."

"Winter. And it's the staff of creation. They will soon both belong to my queen."

"Good to know. But why you're here won't matter once I've killed you." Steam rose into the air from his hot weapons where the bolt struck him and he'd tried to shield it again.

"You think you'll kill me?" He giggled.

"Depends."

"On what?" The entire time we were talking I was charging my semblance.

"This." I answered. Limit Break activated again. The blue light was back and with it came the familiar chord of power. It was like lightning running down my spine. As much or even more so than using lightning dust was. The flames poured over me and I attacked him with increased vigor.

I swept my sword out and front-flipped bringing the blade down. He blocked but the force bent the cobblestone street downwards.

He grinned right in my face and punched me. He jabbed me with his claw in the stomach and he stabbed at me with his metallic tail. It hit me in the shoulder and I spun with the motion to the side. He kept on me. He kicked at my face and tried to send my aura with his claws again. I blocked and twirled Crocea Mors.

I slashed at his face and he was forced to duck. Then I cut at him lower at the leg and he jumped high over it and came to kick me in the face again. I grabbed his leg and bodily slammed him into the street. Limit still roared in my veins and I picked him like a vegetable, dropped him, and swung Crocea Mors like a baseball bat and caught him across the back.

He bounced down the street and I hovered after him. I backflipped at him, sweeping my sword at him vertically from low to high. He sidestepped. His fist glowed with purple aura once more and where it touched me my aura disintegrated.

I swore and swept my blade upwards and popped him into the air. Then I bench pressed him with a jumping lift of Crocea Mors. Then I brought the sword forward in a giant swing which he barely avoided.

He kicked me in the stomach and I grunted and stepped back. He tried to push his advantage with a snarl. His ponytail whipped about as he pressed forward.

He jabbed at me with his right claw. Then his left connected with my nose, which stung. I reeled backwards but he was on me. I brought my weapon between us and he pressed both claws against it and shoved me backwards. I was off balance and couldn't use my enormous strength. I stumbled back and his tail caught my leg and I started to fall.

I caught myself on air and swept my sword in a circle around me as I readied myself. It caught him in the legs but most importantly it forced him back a little.

He snarled at me. "Sarhh," a sort of half growling noise in frustration.

So far I was beating him. He had shown off his semblance too. Some kind of aura disruptor. And I was making him eat dirt anyways and he couldn't even appropriately capitalize on his advantage state because I was a hovering badass. Limit still coursed through me. I had every advantage.

I hit him with an aerial attack that bounced him off the pavement and spent Limit in a bladebeam that caught his roll.

He roared again. A noise that promised vengeance and violence and I stared him down unafraid as I charged up the next Limit Break.

He rushed me. He was a blitz of claws and tail and kicks. I blocked the first slash and he clipped me with the next when I couldn't react in time without Limit.

I backflipped away from his next flurry of right legged kicks. I flew back at him and cut twice at chest level horizontally. He was forced back by the massive range my sword offered me. He tried to duck under but he just ate a knee to the face for his troubles.

Soon I would have Limit again. Whether from damage to him or damage to me. I mimed like I was going to aerial him again but he saw through the feint and jumped on me.

He knocked me to the ground for real and straddled me. He went for my neck. His glowing purple hands descended on me and ravaged my aura. In a moment he would cut my vulnerable throat with those sharp blades. My hands dropped my sword and caught his wrists.

That was when his tail came up and around. It stabbed at my face but I craned my neck to the side and it sunk into the cobblestone street.

It reared back and stabbed down again and once more I twisted my head out of the way.

I swept a leg up and wrapped it around his throat. He choked on my calf for an impossible moment and I rolled to my feet, my foot on his neck.

I dived to the side and picked up my sword. I abandoned my advantage to reclaim my weapon. I rolled back to my feet and was met with two boots to the face.

It was like a bell rang as Limit once more flowed through me. He growled again, part howl and backed off firing bullets at me. I blocked them easily enough and glid at him with one arm forward and my sword arm back.

I backflipped at him after I reversed. And I slung my weapon against his hard enough to knock him back. I landed and swept my own kicks at him. I then brought my weapon around to take his head off and he caught it on both of his. I had Limit and leverage and I forced him back.

I drove my blade forward and rose up into the air before I slammed back down on him. My landing threw up cobble from the street. Our fight was turning the passage into a mess.

But it was nearing its conclusion. His shirt was starting to get torn up by the battle. The straps coming loose. My heart beat faster. I could feel the battle drawing to an end. And I wasn't losing. That dive onto me had been a desperate effort. I was going to kill him.

I slashed two times with a shout. The first he fought but the second landed below his ribs and knocked the wind out of him.

I stepped and pivoted right inside his effective range and swung upwards.

I threw him up into the air with a golf style swing he couldn't block. Then I followed him into the air and I Octa-slashed him. I hovered in the air and went through all eight swings. I slashed vertically twice at the end to finish things off and he was hurled eight feet straight down.

He landed and I brought my blade straight down on his chest. It sunk into his purple crackling aura and then through deep into muscle and cracking bone.

It was more satisfying than sex, watching him cough up blood as he choked out his last.

I just stood over him and began charging my next Limit. I clapped my hands once, slapping one off the other like I finished a hard day's work and pulled my weapon out of his chest.

He leaned up with it and spat up a lot of blood.

I laughed and he died. He laughed a little too which ruined my moment a little.

I got close to activating my next charge. First responders would be here soon and I had better be gone before they arrived. I sheathed my weapon over my shoulder and it folded slightly into the form I used to carry it around in.

I tapped the side of Tyrian's face with my boot and stepped away. Our battle had really done a number on the street around us. His bullets had shattered windows and my fire spell had left a building splattered with flames.

Oh well. One down. Three to go. Cinder, Merlot, Hazel.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	52. Proud Ice Queen VI

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Things somehow weren't exactly awkward between Ruby and I now that she knew how I felt and I knew she felt something back. Somehow we were still able to work closely together. I suppose that was what she meant by just needing more time. She was just worried and confused about Jaune. Which I understood.

I was still laying awake at night confused about my feelings for Jaune myself. So I wasn't exactly casting stones at her about it. Plus she promised she'd be ready to return my feelings eventually. So it was not like she'd rejected my emotions. She just needed a moment to breath.

I could deliver her that. I would deliver her that. She deserved that from me. I could be as patient as she needed me to be. I also just needed her to know. I wasn't going to be able to hide it from her forever.

Maybe things would be different if what had happened with Jaune was different. If whatever happened at Haven hadn't happened. It hurt that Ruby and I still didn't know for sure what I felt about it. My upbringing wasn't one that led me to be in touch with my emotions.

I knew where Blake and Yang and Qrow still stood on the issue. They saw him as a traitor who turned on us. Blake in particular likened him to Adam, her own ex who eventually turned on her ideals of what the White Fang should be.

And it wasn't like Jaune wasn't a killer. He was. But had he crossed the line into being addicted to murder to solve his problems was the key question. Because Yang was a killer too and nobody doubted her. Blake, too, had killed during her stint in the White Fang and she was above suspicion. It was then just a question of whether he killed when the situation called for it or if he killed because he felt like it.

It was a scary thought and the image of him kicking one of Don Corneo's men in the head replayed in my mind over and over again.

It depended on what had happened to him at Haven, didn't it? Ruby, I knew, was still holding out for the best, whatever that may be. And in my heart I coveted the same thing. I wanted Jaune to be innocent. Even if it meant something horrible had happened to him. Perhaps that was cruel of me. Perhaps it was hopeful of me. Perhaps it was a lot of things of me.

"You mentioned you were attacked in Argus, right Ruby?" I asked her as she reclined on her bed and read from her comics.

Her hair looked good in the early morning light of Atlas as she kicked her feet up like a school girl. She was adorable to watch.

"These blonde, blue eyed girls," she nodded. She looked over at me, her eyes were little silver mirrors. The light of dawn rebounded around and off of them.

"Did you catch any of their semblances?" I asked.

"The one I fought had this blue and red being that fought with her. It made her attacks stronger. Oscar and Qrow fought one which had a violet lightning semblance that made her faster, I think."

"That sounds a lot like Jaune's Limit Breaker. Doesn't it?"

"Maybe…"

"Is it possible that they are his sisters."

"Maybe. They might be the right age for it. But…"

"But then they should have known we didn't have the relic, if they were working for Salem, that is."

Who were those girls that attacked my friends in Argus? We'd talked about it a little before now and their powers were not dissimilar to Jaune's but they were after the relic. Something they should have known we didn't have. We'd talked about it as a group a little. I was curious about it a little more.

And they were young, young enough to fit into that category of how old he'd told Ruby his sisters were. If they were in league with Salem and looking for the relic didn't that mean Jaune had to be too?

But then they should have known that we didn't have it. It made no sense unless Jaune _wasn't_ in league with Salem.

"How could Jaune simultaneously be working with her and not?" Ruby asked. She was reaching a similar conclusion as I was. She was always a little clever.

She also understood people preternaturally. She had a sixth sense about it. I wouldn't be surprised if she was able to pick people out of a line up based on their semblances. She was a powerful empath. Not as strong as Ren had been who's semblance had been tied to emotions, but she was good.

The power of aura gave her a supernatural sense of the emotions of those around her. It was why I'd abandoned trying to hide what I felt for her. She'd have been able to feel it eventually.

Something was afoot when it came to Jaune, something worrying. I knew she was thinking it too.

"You're thinking about Jaune, aren't you Weiss."

"A little," I confessed. "I don't understand what happened."

"You and me both." She put her comics down. She walked over and traced her hands through my hair. It felt nice so I leaned into her touch and let out a contented hum. "Blake doesn't believe us about him."

"She never got to meet him in Mistral," I defended. "She may know Adam but she never saw the new Jaune."

"Their semblances are concerning to me. If _they're_ similar then _they_ are similar," Ruby murmured. "They have to be, that scares me."

"That doesn't have to be a bad thing like she thinks. There were things about Adam that she herself used to like and souls are complicated business," I tried to refute. "Semblances are confusing and Jaune's is hardly the only one I've seen where the user has to stand still. I stand nearly still while I'm doing summonings."

She rubbed her face in my hair and laid on top of me in the bed. I turned around and put an arm around her and squeezed her close to me. She sighed as I did and we laid together on my bed.

I stroked her pretty red and black hair and she burrowed into the crook of my arm. Her little hourglass shape fit snuggly next to mine and I kissed her forehead. I just lay there stroking her and staring at her. It was a comforting moment, unbroken by interruptions and I had the pleasure of just staring at her as she rested with her eyes closed.

In that moment it didn't much feel like she was leading me on. It felt like that promise that she would be ready to return my feelings. One day, soon, she would be ready to give back to me what I wanted from her. She gave me a light blush and returned me a sigh.

I would miss this. If anything happened, losing moments like this would break my cold lonely heart.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We met up in the briefing room and I saw Winter again. She was working on a data pad with a rough sketch of Atlas's newest hostile person of interest. Cloud Strife. I thought the sketch looked roughly familiar. Around the eyes and the bridge of the nose, maybe. The spiky hair and diamond piercings looked like no one I had ever met, however. He had a Mistrali look to him in the sketch as well.

"Still working on Cloud Strife, I see."

"Indeed. He burned down a building recently and killed thirty people. They were all gang members but still, murder is murder." Winter sighed. "He's working with Neapolitan and getting involved with the local gangs. It breathes of Roman Torchwick which is more than a touch concerning. The last thing Atlas needs is someone stirring the gangs up and mixing the pot."

"We've killed gang members too, " I muttered. "We got involved in the local mafia infighting in Mistral."

"Yeah, ever heard of Don Corneo. We killed some of his men," Yang followed me up.

"Killing in the line of duty isn't the same as murder." Winter shot us down. "What you went through is a tragedy in the course of securing the maidens and the relics. It isn't the same as gang warfare over drugs and prostitution."

Yang just shrugged like she couldn't really bring herself to believe it. I hadn't killed anyone and couldn't really speak to it.

"Perhaps you require counseling. You are young," Winter murmured softly.

"I don't need to see a shrink," Yang said.

"It's hardly anything to be ashamed of. I had to attend counseling when I was younger and killed for the first time," Winter confessed. "It's part of what we do. We all go through it. There are trained professionals to help us handle it. It's part of military life, at least in the Atlas military. Though perhaps you are handling it better than most. This is the first I'm hearing about it." She gave me an interested look.

"I've never killed. It was my job to torture the Don for information," I told her. "It was Jaune's operation."

"Perhaps more concerning than I thought. Torture and the turncoat. Perhaps I should prescribe you therapy. Torture is often as traumatic for the torturer as for the victim."

"I'm doing just fine, thank you," I instead insisted. "Don Corneo was a disgusting waste and I have no regrets."

"I see…" I could tell she was still worried in her distant way. I embraced the feeling of my older sibling's worry. It was oddly nice to bask in. I wasn't sure what Ruby was always complaining about. I was just glad she wasn't offering me therapy for Jaune.

I wasn't sure how to handle that odd ball of feelings and I didn't want to talk about them with some stranger. Plus I was sure that almost no matter what the topic was our problem child would probably come up. Even if it was just discussing torturing the Don.

Winter flickered over some other images on her data pad. It was two way so I couldn't help but see.

"Is that… Tyrian?" I asked.

"You know this person?" Winter asked. "He was a known mass murderer."

She reversed the image on the data pad for me.

I nodded. "He was in Mistral. He's the Scorpion faunus I told you about. The agent of Salem."

"I see." Winter scrolled through her report. "I was only just beginning to look at this statement regarding him. It appears he is a prospect for the description you provided. Scorpion faunus, claw like weapons, a metallic prosthesis for a tail. He's a match."

I stared at the photograph of Tyrian with blood at the corner of his lips. He was still smiling with a faint grin on his mouth and in his eyes.

"He's dead?" I asked, I examined the image. I'd fought him in Mistral. He was incredibly fast. And he fought with all of his five limbs in play. It made for a difficult opponent. He was easily the most dangerous enemy I had ever faced in real combat.

"He is. He was killed by Cloud Strife. Or someone with a similar weapon. Most likely him, however. A broadsword, to the chest. A mass murderer like Tyrian Callows would have been bad for Strife's business and that of his allies. He intervened and cut off Salem's influence at the knees."

"Strife is that dangerous?" Yang asked. "Who would have thought."

"Indeed, Strife is making quite the name for himself and he's proving near impossible to catch with Neapolitan working for him. She's an illusionist and talented at that." Winter replied. "We don't even have a good image of him."

"A broadsword…" I murmured. I tried to connect it with the familiar portrait of Cloud Strife. It was possible, however unlikely, that Jaune did this. Tall, blonde hair, and blue eyes. If nothing else Jaune was similar to Strife. Winter had my description of Jaune, though. I was sure that if it was him, then she'd be closing the noose on him already. For good or for ill.

"What's the mission today?" Ruby asked. Maybe she was thinking the same thing I was and wanted the conversation to move along. Or maybe she was just genuinely asking.

"Grimm in a dust mine near where Amity is being repaired. You're being teamed up with the Ace Ops to clear them out."

"Anything special or just an infestation in general," Blake took the mission dossier from Winter and began to read. I got my own copy and started to leaf through it.

"There's been reports of a rather old giest. It is something to be wary of when you go in," Winter answered. "The classified nature of this mission is what calls for you all. It could be relatively minor and not worth all your skills. Or it could prove necessary."

I read through and looked at the map of the dust mines. It was entirely possible things could get rough in there with no means of supplying one another with quick aid.

"And this is close to where Amity is being worked on," I asked.

"It's nearby. As you can see we'll be dropping you all in. So have a landing strategy prepared."

"This dust mine… it belongs to the Schnee corporation." Blake murmured. She met my eye.

I looked through the dossier and found what she was looking at.

"It used to. It was seized by Atlas under imminent domain," my sister returned. "And it was promptly closed. We couldn't afford leaks about what's going on with Amity and we needed the space."

"And all that untouched dust will be needed for the first phase of the tower's launch," Clover continued for Winter. "Atlas huntsmen are already at work clearing out the surrounding tundra but that Giest evaded destruction and took refuge in the mines; it also took several lives. It's smart. It's old. It's dangerous. The works."

"The mines are an absolute maze from all the excavation they did back in the day. There's all kinds of tunnels it can move between. So, if we're going to kill this thing, we're going to have to split up and corner it. Pin it down, then drop the hammer on it," Clover continued.

I nodded at him while he projected a map of the mines for us. It had one enormous chamber and a series of off-shooting tunnels.

"We need to get this done before any of the other workers or soldiers get hurt. Any questions?" He finished crisply.

I closed the dossier. We had none.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

With the help of Ace Ops destroying the giest was easy enough. They cornered it in the largest chamber and picked away at its body. To tell the truth it didn't seem like Ace Ops needed much of our help. They were all fast and strong and they operated well as a team. It made me a little jealous. Sure we worked well together, but that well? Perhaps not.

We exited the mine all together and soldiers rushed in behind us to start to secure the place and start getting dust unloaded and ready for the launch.

"Ruby, Qrow? May I speak to you both for a moment?" It was Ironwood standing by a bunch of military trucks. He'd been talking to Clover. That just left Yang, Blake, and I on an airstrip. A plane bearing the SDC logo came descending down on the strip we were on.

"So let me get this straight James." My father came striding out of the airship. His face was red with rage. I hated that look. I was it's target more than once. "In addition to this nonsensical embargo of yours crippling my business, you've also decided you have the authority to commandeer private property. When the council hears about this you will never-"

"Actually I've already informed them. As this is now the site of a classified military operation. It didn't even require a vote." Ironwood ran my father over easily.

"Didn't require a vote?!"

"You might want to brush up on council law before you lose this upcoming election, Jacque; now, I've allowed you to land here once as a courtesy. The next time won't be a friendly reception."

"Lately you seem to forget who your friends really are. I'm going to get that council seat, James and maybe then you'll…" he noticed me standing there in my new blue outfit. "You… you roped my missing daughter into these schemes of yours too? How long has she been back in Atlas. Does Winter know about this-"

"It was my decision to leave you. It was my decision to come back. Or have you forgotten all about that?"

"If you think I'm one to forget anything, girl, then you've misjudged the man your father is."

"Believe me, I know exactly the kind of man you are." I folded my arms over my chest and I stared my father down. He was abusive, emotionally and physically. He was a coward who ran from his own name. He had no right to talk to me that way. I wasn't his doll. Never again.

"How dare you speak to me that way, I have half a mind to-"

"Half a mind to what, Jacques?" Ironwood interrupted my father again.

My father growled and did up his sleeve. "You know, your mother was devastated when you left." I glowered up at him. "Didn't leave her room for days. You know how she gets when she's upset."

My mother… she knew the sort of man she was marrying. On one level I felt pity for her, on the next I couldn't help but feel that she was getting what she deserved. She knew who my father was. She had to have. And she married him anyway. Still… still I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Which was what I knew my father wanted.

I felt some disgust at myself and at his emotional manipulation. He was always like this. I should have known I could never take the high road with him stooping so low.

He turned away from me and back to Ironwood. "I knew one day you would overextend your reach. I didn't come here to beg for an abandoned mine. I came here to thank you. For personally handing me the noose to hang you. You'll regret this." He turned back to me. Ruby had come up and was holding my hand. Rubbing little circles of comfort into it.

I squeezed her fingers back and she threaded hers between mine. It was small, but it was ours. No one else could take that from me.

"So these are the little friends you threw everything away for." He always reached for the low blow. He was predictable like that. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to deal with, however.

"Not friends. Family." I returned.

He stalked back to his ship past Ironwood with a growl.

I let a sigh escape me as his ship departed.

A military vehicle pulled up in his spot and Winter popped her head out. Glaring up at father's ship.

"Winter, oh now you show up. You just missed father."

"Oh I wouldn't say I missed him," she returned. She felt rather the same about father as I did. That was healthy to know.

I was not alone.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	53. Nibel I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Neo had confirmed the presence of an elderly woman that only Winter Schnee was allowed to see. She took her tea green so I did in fact get all the information I wanted. Fria was her name. And she was the winter maiden, at least if Tyrian could be taken at his word, which in this case, why not? Did it really matter if she was winter or summer? Not for my purposes.

Aside from Tyrian's location, Aurum had informed me of another of Merlot's laboratories in a place called Mt. Nibel. It was above a small dust mining town that Neo and I reached on a combination of train and foot.

He also promised to put me in contact with a group of ex-workers who could tell me about the General's secret project. A group called Avalanche. They had some little favors they needed from me first but they'd talk. At least according to Aurum. They just needed a little help with something first. No biggie for someone like me. I was a favor guy. I was a problem solver.

Nibelhiem had all the usual dust amenities and I took the time to resupply my dust where it was cheap. Cheapest in all the world. Especially with the embargo driving up supply and decreasing demand.

They were practically giving the stuff away and I had my pick of crystals from a vendor near the mountain.

"Burn and shock crystals. Uncut is fine." He nodded. The uncut ones were a little cheaper. Not that it mattered much to me. I still was swimming in cash even after the train rides and the private airship.

"You headed up the mountain?" He asked as he set crystals on his counter.

I nodded. "And a bit of weight, please." He nodded and he pulled out a purple crystal and set it next to the array of yellow and red crystals.

"Well you might need a guide if you're goin' up the mountain. You got a place in mind or are you just out hunting?"

I took them and put them in my crystal pouch. They clanked together in the pocket and I'd need to consider a new way of carrying them to make sure they didn't blow up on me and destroy my face in the process.

Nothing bad had happened yet but that was no reason to tempt fate where I was concerned. I had the worst luck. Like the absolute worst.

"What do you think Neo? Do we need a guide to take us up the mountain?"

She pursed her lips in thought at me. She raised a finger. I took that however I wanted.

"We're headed to an old laboratory up there. You ever heard of it?" I asked. "Run by this guy named Merlot at some point in the past?"

"I haven't but I'm willing to bet you could find a guide who has in a young girl. She's been training to be a huntress up here. Her name's Peach Locheart."

"And do you know where I might find this young girl?"

"She's usually in her teacher's dojo. Zangan's his name."

I nodded my head. It was entirely possible a guide would be necessary up in those mountains. The wind seemed to course over them fast enough to whip up a blizzard and even trained huntsmen like yours truly could get lost in that kind of weather.

It was unlike the last laboratory which we sort of knew the location of based on our conversation with Godo. I was coming in here a little blind.

"She's not like a kid, is she?" I asked. "My friend here isn't fond of kids." I gestured to Neo with both hands.

"She's a bit on the younger side. Mature for her age, though, if that helps." He pointed the way to Zangan's dojo down the street.

I thanked him for the advice and the dust and made my way there.

There was a young girl in a pink combat skirt firing off kicks against a dummy punching bag. She was maybe fifteen, old enough to kind of understand the world. Old enough to start to be a huntress. An older gentleman turned to look at me as I walked in.

"Howdy," he greeted unironically. He actually said howdy this far north. "What brings you in here?"

"I'm headed up the mountains, into Merlot's old laboratory. I need a guide to take me there. A dust vendor outside recommended someone named Peach."

"That's me," the young girl delivered a punch and a kick to the bag for emphasis.

"She can take you up the mountains. I've never heard of a laboratory being up there, though."

"He must mean that old white and grey bunker up there." Peach cut in. "I've seen it. Never been inside though."

"What do you say kid, want to take me up there?"

"What's in it for me?" She asked. I liked her style. She was more worldly than Yuma had been. Less of that naivety. It would make her harder to trick but that was at once a good and a bad thing.

"I have Lien. Set your price," I told her.

"I don't need Lien." She punched the bag in time with her words.

"Everybody needs something, kid. Everybody has a price."

"I'm not a kid either. You said you were buying dust?"

"That's right." I palmed a crystal from my pocket and showed it to her.

"You know magic, then? You're a hunter." She took in the massive weapon at my back. Her eyes flicked over my shoulder.

"Only a little. I'm better at using it to set explosives," I informed her.

"Teach me."

"Hmm." I hummed at that.

"I don't need your money but I'm going to be a huntress. I need to know about dust if I'm going to be any good. You teach me how to use it to make explosives and you've got a deal."

She held out a wrapped hand.

I reached out and shook it.

"You've got yourself a deal, little miss."

She flushed a little red. Maybe she was nervous.

"Peach…" Zangan warned. "Be careful. And you better go ask your father."

"Not to worry sir, I'll keep her safe," I told him. "She seems like quite the student."

She rushed off out the door behind me to do as her teacher bade.

"She is. She's very dedicated. You know how it is with the young'uns. They want to be hunters so bad they'll miss the forest for the trees. They don't know what it'll cost."

That most hunters died young. I understood.

"We don't all get to live to be as old as you are." He was only forty or so. Middle aged.

He grunted at that. "How old are you kid?"

"Twenty."

"And the Miss with you?"

Neo held up a warning hand.

"Neo? I'm not sure. She doesn't talk. Plus it's rude to ask a lady her age. We've been traveling together for a while now, though."

"Well don't be shocked if her father wants to meet with you before he sends you off with his daughter. He's not a huntsman himself but he understands a little."

"But not the whole picture."

"They rarely do. Rarely can." He leaned against the counter in front of the dojo. "He's paying me a pretty penny to teach his daughter. She's hungry for it. You met the type?"

I thought of Yuma Kisaragi and I thought of little Ruby Rose. Plus there was me, myself, before I knew my memories were fake and my dreams were dead.

"Once or twice."

"You ever seen it work out well?" He seemed to be genuinely asking me. Like he wasn't sure himself.

"They're alive." I managed. "So it's sort of too early to tell."

"They your age?"

"Yes sir, one. And another is your Peach's age. A little huntress to be out of a place called Wutai. You heard of it?"

He shook his head.

"It's a small town. Down near Mistral," I went on.

"That where you're from?" He asked.

"Near Mistral? I suppose. But I was trained and raised in Vale, though." And that was the truth, near as I could tell.

"Been all over, have you?"

"A bit."

"The traveling mysterious huntsman type. I ought to hate your guts."

"Sir?"

"You ought t' know. Be careful with my apprentice. You should know how young hearts are. You were one more recently than me, as you pointed out."

I ran a hand through my spiky hair and sighed. That seemed to be good enough for him because he nodded.

"I'll look after her. Nobody will get hurt on my watch," I swore.

"And if someone is?" He leaned over at me.

"I'll bring her right back here."

"There ain't a hospital in town."

"She's a huntress. She has aura."

"Huntress in training. You know they're not the same thing."

"I'll be as safe as I can be. I'm promising to train her in explosives for gods' sake. There's only so safe you can be. Besides, if you think she'll be good enough by being trained In a dojo you've got another thing coming. Does she want to make it into one of the Academies?"

Zangan nodded.

"Then she needs to fight Grimm. A lot of them. The sooner the better. I trained at Beacon. Initiation started with launching us into a Grimm infested forest."

"Lords above. So young..."

"Seventeen isn't that young. There was even this prodigy that was her age there and she was better than me. Still is. Well maybe." I wasn't sure how I still might stand up against Ruby. I was fucking dangerous. If she plateaued, then I might have the edge on her.

Peach came back with an older man in tow.

"Father this is...um…" Her pink eyes flickered to mine. Oh to be young. Ever.

"Cloud Strife, sir." I shook his hand firmly. He was a touch shorter than me with brown hair unlike his daughter's blonde. And his eyes were a dark red. But eye colors could be weird in Remnant. Ask Yang.

"I hear that my daughter wants to take you up the mountain in exchange for some training."

"That's right. I was going to show her some of what I know about dust."

"You mean… like magic?"

"Maybe a little. I know some but my real experience is in using it to make explosives."

"Peach…" he trailed off looking down at her.

"Dad I need to learn this kind of thing. He can show me. Sifu-Zangan doesn't use dust."

"Never needed it," Zangan grunted.

"You never killed any big fish, then," I said.

He looked away and I thought of Tyrian and Raven. There were also big Grimm which would be difficult to kill without dust. The Nuckelavee was like that, too.

"Well what do you think, Zangan?"

"The kid seems trustworthy." He shrugged. "He can teach her things I don't know. It might save her life one day. He also attended Beacon. He can let her know the sort of life she'll be in for at the Academies."

"Beacon… were you there when it went down?" Peach's father asked.

"I was," I answered easily.

Peach looked up at me with her bright pink eyes. "You were at Beacon? What was it like?"

I laughed at her curiosity.

"Peach." Her father warned. I waved him off.

"It's alright. My time at Beacon was the best. It was a lot of hard work though."

"Did you fight big Grimm?" She e asked.

"I did."

"I knew it." She pumped a fist. "He fought real Grimm."

"I can show her some of what I know. I can teach her how to fight them."

"You had to fight Grimm while you attended?" Her father asked. "Or just when the academy went down?"

"Both," I waved a hand and answered. "Initiation was us fighting Grimm."

"I see…" He looked deep in thought. "I don't want you fighting a lot of Grimm. The idea makes me uncomfortable."

"I'm going to be a huntress. That's the whole point."

"You're right. Of course you're right."

"And I've been that high up in the mountains before. I've fought Grimm like that. It's just Beowulfs and Creepers. I'll be safe. It's all a learning opportunity."

"Very well. Mr. Huntsman, Strife, was it? You'll look after my daughter?"

"No harm will come to her. You have my word."

She pumped a wrapped fist in the air. "Dust explosions here I come."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We made our way into the mountains, out of Nibelhiem, and needed to set up our tent for the night. It was not as long into the journey as I would have liked. In typical Neo fashion she sat and watched me set up everything and cook dinner.

"So how do you set up explosions?" Peach was shaking with excitement. "And will you show me some of your magic, too?"

"It's not real magic," I explained. "You'll occasionally run into a real dust sorcerer. Someone who can do all kinds of things with dust. I just know how to use it in its raw form. Primal. I don't even know how to eat it"

"Eating it?" She laughed.

"It's not actually eating it. It's putting it in your body so that you can use the power. You can actually eat it I suppose or you can just stick it in your flesh and it sort of slides into you. Into your aura."

"But it's still magic, right?"

"A little. But it's like comparing a first aid kit to a hospital staffed with doctors. I'm a bit of a neanderthal."

"Oh I don't believe that. You seem smart."

"You've only just met me. Give it a minute."

She laughed again, her eyes were bright. "Show me how to use dust to make explosives."

It was easy enough. I showed her how to set it up with a circuit, a battery, and a switch.

"The switch is the complicated part. You might want to learn about how radio signals work if you want to be able to blow them up remotely."

"But that's it. Just a circuit and a crystal and that's it."

"It's not rocket science. It's really easy. You can pretty easily make a landmine like this. Just bury it with a trigger on a plate underground and bing-bang-boom. You've got yourself a trap. I cornered a pretty big Grimm like that once."

"What else can you do?"

"You can throw it really hard."

She gave me a questioning look.

"Look you just throw a dust crystal hard enough and fast enough and it works. It explodes and unleashes the effects."

"That sounds too easy. It's supposed to be all hard and complicated."

"Well it shouldn't surprise you. They have to move it around all safe in containers for control. Too much disturbance and the stuff just goes off. Even in powder form."

"But you don't use it in powder. Because you can use it raw."

"That's right. Let me show you."

I handled a yellow crystal and crushed it. Lightning ran up my arm and I cast an arm forward. Lightning struck the tree from my open palm and burnt a hole in it and part of the tree to ash.

"Wow…" she breathed. "That's what you meant."

"Yeah. It's not quite what a real dust sorcerer can do but it's closer. I just unleash the power a little more controlled."

"And that's not the same as eating it."

"No. And I can't show you because I'm not a dust eater, either. But as I understand it you can just shove the crystal through your skin or into your mouth and the crystal becomes a part of you. It changes your aura."

"I see. Can I try?"

"Which one?"

"That blast that you just did, not eating it."

"Sure. Why don't you try fire. It's very dangerous so after you crush the crystal you'll be able to feel the power. Then you've got to let it go or it'll explode in your face. It's still dangerous."

I handed her a red uncut crystal and she held it up to the light. She was looking at how it shone unlike any other substance in the world. The light always came through it red. It always seemed to bounce around impossibly inside the meta-material.

"Are you ready?"

She nodded.

"I just crush it then I let it go?" She asked.

"Pretty much. You'll be able to feel the power. It'll feel hot, like your arm is on fire."

She nodded.

She crushed it and murmured, "I can feel it. I feel the power."

"You need to let it go!" I told her urgently. She was just standing there with the power coursing through her.

She tried but the flames blew up in her face and knocked her on her ass. Her jacket was singed slightly, revealing her tank-top underneath.

"I told you to let go."

She wiped her ash cover hands off on her pants. "Thanks. I wasn't sure how though. Can I try it again?"

"I messed up my first few times too." I handed her another red uncut crystal.

She inhaled deeply. Then she crushed the crystal and I watched the flames run up her arm. Then she cast her arm forward and a fireball shot free. It struck the same tree I did and the pine roasted for a pleasant smell.

The snow was coming down hard enough that the fire wouldn't spread. It was too damp and too cold.

I pumped a fist. I wasn't an incompetent teacher. And she hooted.

"That's how it's done," she called out into the night.

"Well done."

"Can I try it again? With the lightning ones maybe?"

"Not tonight, no. You might like to change now. I hope you brought a spare coat."

She looked down at her arm. "Oh shit, I didn't even notice. The heat of it all. Yeah I have a spare one."

She walked over to her bag and changed her coat.

"Thanks Cloud, you really helped me."

"It was no problem." I smiled. This felt like real good. It had been a long time since I felt that. What with all the murder and chaos and all. It made me feel like I was a good person again. Even if it was just for a moment.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	54. Nibel II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Peach led the way towards the bunker. It looked mostly the same as the one built near Mistral. Dented in places from the Grimm, a sign that there was nobody home. Merlot wasn't here at least at first inspection.

The front entrance was just sitting open, though. It wasn't torn into like I would have done. It seemed from an open fuse box that somebody had wired their way inside.

They had to know about electronics much more than I did to do something like that. And it wasn't likely that Merlot would have to wire his way into his own facilities. Unlikely but not impossible. Especially if he hadn't visited in a while.

A harsh wind howled around us. It was quickly whipping up into a blizzard. I pulled my pipe out and smoked it. I struggled to get my lighter to work and I sniffled against the cold.

"This is it. But it wasn't open the last time I was here," Peach said. "Well not here here but near enough to see it."

"Stay here Peach. Be on your guard," I returned. "I'm not sure what we'll find inside. Merlot is rather famous for his experiments on the Grimm."

"On the Grimm? Why?"

"Why indeed. I suspect that he likes it but I haven't had the chance to talk to him about it. Maybe that changes today."

I rather doubted it but it was always possible that he was really here. Somebody had wired that door open.

Neo took a step forward and together we walked into the laboratory. Some Grimm had made their way inside and we collapsed on them easily. I pulled my shorter longsword and Neo used her stiletto. I cut down a creeper and paced my way over a hexagonal tiled floor. The lights were on unlike the last place we'd been to so I didn't need to use my soul to cast light on the place.

A Beowulf came upon me and I easily sliced it and it disintegrated into ash and the usual Grimm goo. My heavy boot falls rang out against the tile. Even Neo's heels disturbed the sound of the place with little _clacks. _It was as somber as a crypt inside.

I stomped on a Creeper. I easily crushed the small monster under my heavy boot. They'd gotten inside and had started to tear the place up a little. Some of the glass tubes were broken and frayed wires sparked.

I felt a warning in my soul. My sixth sense called out to me.

"Someone is here. Or was here very recently," I murmured to Neo. There were giant tubes and inside them were Creepers. They were frozen in a strange blue fluid. It wasn't glowing from within like the experiments in Mistral had been, however.

It was incredibly macabre, even these monsters in the tubes rather than the malformed 'human' Grimm of Mistral. The chamber we were currently in was tall and triangular. But it went on past these white and blue suspension pods and deeper inside. Large electrical lights were on above us. They must be dust run, this far from civilization.

The laboratory had to be totally independent of the rest of Atlas and Solitas.

A creeper oozed from the blue liquid from one of the recently broken pods. It was blue instead of white but only in places. The transformation was splotchy and incomplete unlike the green ones we'd run into near Mistral.

It let out a groaning noise and crawled toward me and I put my sword down through it and into the hexagonal tiles. The ground sparked beneath where I sliced it up after the Grimm dissolved into goo and died.

A voice was coming from further in. A low male voice from the baritone of it.

"Come on. Let's see who's up ahead."

As I walked I sliced apart the tubes we came across with Creepers in them. They disgusted me. Perhaps I saw a bit of the experiment that had created me in these. It made my blood boil with hatred. Not just for the Grimm and their ilk but also for Merlot. And for whoever was making noise up ahead.

It also, and I realized that it probably wasn't healthy, made me hate myself.

I didn't like me. That had been true before I learned the kind of monster I really was. I wasn't my biggest fan. I hated what I had to do to get by.

Even before I killed Ren and Nora I hadn't been fond of me. I'd gotten what I deserved more often than I had bad luck. I was disgusted with me. At Beacon, I hated my weakness. I think that was when it really started.

When Ruby loved me I couldn't believe it. How could she? How dare she, an angel like her, love a monster like me. How could she do that to me? It was, in a self detrimental way, incredibly cruel of her to care about me so. Even before I knew what I was I had been like that. I loathed myself and it fucking showed sometimes.

But then again smoking wasn't healthy and I was doing that. I was also hell bent on this path of revenge. Had been bent on revenge for a long time now, between Cinder and Merlot. I probably just figured something else would kill me long before smoking did. My lifestyle plus the enemies I had made ensured that I was probably going to die young. Salem sort of sealed that deal for me, too, by being an immortal goddess.

My self hatred was there. It was present even in the things that I loved and in the relationships I formed with the people who loved me.

Then I started killing people. I became good at it too. I hated me for that even more than ever. I hated hiding it from Ruby when I killed Eminence and her partner.

Now that I knew that I had been right to hate me all along though… now that I knew I really truly was a monster… now that I was doomed to die fighting with a goddess in my brain after she made me kill my team I just had all the reason more to hate myself.

If before I didn't like me, then of late I despised myself.

I tortured people now. I hurt them because I could and they… they couldn't stop me. I'd chosen blood and violence and when Wutai burned I'd thought about finishing the job just because I could and they couldn't stop me.

I wanted to kill Raven Branwen. She'd never done anything to me personally. Except through Vernal she'd never done me wrong but I wanted her dead all the same. Still, I wanted her dead. She'd only narrowly escaped me and I hungred for her blood as much as I did any of the others just because I could. I knew it was wrong.

I wanted to destroy Cinder Fall. I wanted to eviscerate her for all that she had done. For what she did to me personally when she took Pyrrha from me. Whatever could have been, whatever had been supposed to be, it was no more because of her. She took that from me. I was robbed.

Her minions like Emerald and Mercury would have to go to. That went without saying but they weren't at the top of my list of people to nix. If I ran across them and they got got, .so be it. But I wasn't hunting them like I was the others.

Tyrian I had killed for so much as looking at Ruby wrong. The wounds he'd left on my body was meaningless beside what he had wanted to do to her. He tried to take her from me and bring her to Mother. He had to die for that. He did die for that, whether he himself knew that before the end was irrelevant.

Ren and Nora wouldn't want this for me. Pyrrha wouldn't have wanted this for me. She wouldn't have wanted me to seek my revenge against Cinder either but damn it, I wanted that too.

I'd chosen blood over friendship in my heart a long, long time ago. Especially relative to how old I was. One year old and I was committed to revenge.

Ruby's love had been too much for my Grimm blackened heart to bear. In my depths I wanted the boot and the sword. I wanted it.

Mother needed to go too. I wasn't sure how yet. I wasn't sure when but she'd suffer by my hand. As much as she was capable of suffering. However much that was she would experience it. I was going to cut her into pieces.

She had her fingers in my brain. It made me want to slam my head into the wall over and over. There was nothing I could do about it. Her claws were in me. Nothing could keep me safe from her. I was born doomed to go through this.

My cursed father Merlot who even now I hunted would also know my spirit. He would know what it meant to bring a monster into this world. He would know what he had truly wrought. How dare he? How could he?

It was all their fault and I hated them as much as I hated myself. I was a sword. I was meant for this vendetta. My power which allowed me to grow stronger with each beat of my hatred would allow me to strike them down.

We grew closer to the voice. A low aristocratic murmur. It was distant in this place and echoing beside our footfalls. We would be upon the source at any moment.

I suspected it wasn't Merlot but it could be. It could be… and then I'd give him to Neo. Or worse or something, anything worse. I'd split his limbs. I'd tear his eyes from his skull. I'd-I'd… I was working myself up into a tizzy.

I exhaled lowly and slowed my beating heart. It wouldn't do me any good to get jumpy. I breathed in and out, nice and deep as we crept up on our target.

This hall contained suspended Beowulfs now. I continued to spear them. I refused to be cornered by these monsters should the worst come to pass. Whatever purpose my father had intended the blue fluid to have on them was rendered utterly meaningless. Just as I would one day rend his heart.

I moved around a corner, and out a blast door. I came out into a huge open room sword and shield at the ready. I gazed up over a series of computers up at a man in a deep navy blue suit trimmed in yellow. He was speaking into a scroll and abruptly stopped at my presence.

He tapped a few buttons on one of the computers and a shimmering barrier appeared between us. Sealing me and Neo into the cavernous room and himself in the smaller control room.

"And who are you?" His voice boomed into speakers that surrounded me.

"Are you Merlot?" I demanded.

He laughed. "No, I'm not mad Merlot. Now what's your name?"

"I'm Jaune Arc," I announced.

"You… you're Merlot's creation. You're Salem's son!"

I glowered through the barrier at him. "I gave you my name. What's yours?"

"You have… you have the relic of knowledge! I thought your sisters would reclaim it."

"You know my sisters?" I demanded.

"My boy," he drawled. "I created your sisters. In my own laboratory. I suppose if Merlot is your 'father' then I am your 'step-father.'"

I stared at him. "Your name."

"I don't see the point in giving _my_ name to a _failure_. In fact, I don't see much point in continuing this conversation. I will be taking that relic, however."

"Not from in there, you're not." I glared and turned my semblance on. "Come fight me."

"Oh," he mocked with a lazy yawn. "Shiny." He started tapping away at one of the control panels before him.

"Neo, do you think you can teleport in there and shut this barrier down."

She looked at it and shook her head.

I guess there needed to be a little bit of open space for her to move through and that shimmering barrier allowed her none. Some semblances had rules like that. Like mine had plenty of laws. Mine was even defined by its rules.

A gate began to open up in the floor in a spiraling fashion. I hadn't really taken stock of it but it was earth beneath my boots rather than the hard hexagonal tiles that made up the rest of the facility.

From the pit a giant Deathstalker emerged. It was slightly splotched blue like so many of my wretched father's other wretched specimens in this place.

It was enormous, at least as big as the one in initiation, if not a little bigger. It lowered its brightly colored stinger at me and I raised my shield and sword. It slammed it's stinger forward but I met it with the cold hard strength only my semblance could provide. I didn't budge. Back in initiation I'd been pushed back by that Deathstalker's claws but I was so much unbelievably stronger now than then.

I slashed out from behind my shield at the stinger where it met the rest of the white, blue, and black tail.

It screeched at me as I bit deep into its vulnerable flesh and it pulled back. It came at me with its claws but Neo and I vanished with our speed. She backflipped over it, picking at it's exposed eyes as I slid at it hard and sliced at its mouth.

"Neo cut the tail!" She landed next to me and I saw her nod. The tail was now hanging by a twist of flesh and little else. It was vulnerable there. I doubted we'd hammer the stinger into its own head, probably kill it some other way.

I dashed forward and I met its claws. I held it steady while Neo flipped over it and cut its tail off. It screeched again and the Deathstalker reared back.

I cut at its claws where they met dark flesh and the blueish pincers retreated from me. It then charged me and slammed my body against one of the grey walls. I pushed back against it with a heavy boot.

The tail came around and smashed me in the chest, knocking me to the ground. I picked myself back up and met the pincers again with my shield. I slashed around it, trying for the eyes and mouth but it must have seen that trick before because it held me far away with the pincers.

Like an oversized lobster. I tried again to take off one of the pincers. I bit deep into the black flesh between blue and white flesh and it flailed pressing against me.

Neo flipped into place again and stabbed it in one of its eyes. It roared with rage, the mouth parts frothed with spittle and I felt nothing but disgust for it.

This thing was just reminding me of better times with my friends. Not that I had anything against Neo, in fact I probably had the least against Neo out of anybody alive on the planet. She just wasn't a good replacement for my teammates and friends. She just didn't do it for me like Pyrrha, Ren, or Nora could. You know? It was nothing personal. I'm sure she felt the same way about me and Roman.

I dived and brought my sword down two handed against the claw and took the tip off through the armor. The tail came whipping around and I jumped and hovered in the middle of the air and Cross-Slashed its face and tail.

It writhed to get away from my combo and it screamed in agony as I took its tail off and left deep gouges in its carapace near its face.

There wasn't that much room for it to escape me from. I was guessing things in here with it were more locked in with it and less having it locked in with them. I was turning its usual situation on its head.

I stabbed down through an eye as I fell and it writhed and tried to shake me off. I twisted Crocea Mors and shattered its shell around where Crocea Mors was buried.

It cried and began to dissolve into dust and goo.

I walked up to the barrier that guy was on the other side of and banged on it four times. _Gong. Gong. Gong. Gong. _I began to recharge my semblance.

"Little pit, little pig, let me in." He began to back away from his control panel. I stood and charged for a long time. I got my hands on my semblance again and swung at the barrier as hard as I could, burning my semblance with it in a wild attack.

The barrier failed for a moment and lights on his side of the barrier blared.

"I'll huff and I'll puff." I menaced from outside. "What's it going to be Mr. Man."

He ran away, the enormous coward. I couldn't believe it. He was just leaving us locked in here. I charged up my semblance and rattled the barrier until it broke. I banged at it over and over again and then I Cross-Slashed it after putting my sword together with the shield and getting the broadsword. But whoever the man with the mustache was, he escaped.

I swore and I screamed and I slashed up some of the computers in my rage before I had the sense to calm down and remember I might want to look through them.

Then I marched down the passageway after the mustached man. It eventually led out a back entrance to the laboratory. I sighed. He was stone cold gone. Along with any chance I had of learning about my sisters.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	55. Flower Girl VI

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Professor, can I ask you something?" I asked. Sort of ruining the point of the question but it still stood.

Oscar's eyes rolled slightly and he shuddered a little as Ozpin's spirit took him over while he sat in a desk chair. "Ms. Rose, of course you can. I hope to get that into you by now. Perhaps practice shall make perfect."

"Right."

I'd cornered him in his and Oscar's room in Atlas Academy. It was near ours. In the same wing, even. The ex-headmaster was the only person I'd seen with his own room, though.

"It's about Cinder Fall, the fact that she's two maidens."

"Yes?"

"Well now that she's both spring and fall and the power always goes to the last person on their mind when they die…"

"The last able candidate or someone random." The professor continued for me. He let me press on when I was ready.

"Right, doesn't that mean the spring and fall maidens are one now? Forever? The powers will be together now until…"

"Yes. Perhaps they will be. I have a bit of a plan in this regard. Won't you join me? Rather than sit out in the hall."

I walked in and closed the door behind me.

"Ms. Rose I intend to use my magic to split the powers of fall and spring once more."

"But I thought you'd exhausted your magic."

"For anything large, this is certainly true. I couldn't recreate the maidens nor any one of them. And perhaps gifting powers as I did your uncle and aunt would be too taxing as well. But for the purpose of splitting powers which already exist I believe I have strength enough."

He poured a glass of water in front of him on the desk from a pitcher. "Imagine this glass as the maiden vessel. In this case, Cinder Fall. Now imagine the water inside is the maiden powers."

He poured from the glass into another and slid it across the table to me. I giggled a little and took the glass. I sipped on it.

"Just as so, I believe I can separate the powers of the maidens easily without needing to recreate them. Then however, another question arises. What to do with those powers once Cinder no longer has them. Even the best case scenario has some issues that need to be ironed out."

"I'll do it," I told him. "I'll be fall or spring."

"Ah." He said. "And you think I'll ask you to? A touch arrogant don't you think?"

"Jaune brought it up. He said that you were grooming us, my team, for it."

"And perhaps I was," He conceded. "Jaune was fairly sharp, while he was with us."

"He was smarter than he ever gave himself credit for," I agreed.

"I would prefer to impress upon another of your teammates the powers, Ruby."

"Not me? Why? Is it because of Jaune?"

He raised a hand and I went silent. I took a drink from my glass of water.

"No, it isn't because of Jaune. It's because of your eyes."

"My powers?" I asked.

"Yes. Too many eggs in one basket, you see? If not two members of your team then perhaps Penny Polendina and one of team RWBY. That would play with Ironwood's plan to make Winter the winter maiden. She could work well with both the member of your team and Winter Schnee," he lectured.

"But not me."

"I would prefer not. No. While you are already a target of Salem, I would question adding to that by making you one of the maidens. It does not seem a sane plan."

"Speaking of plans, Professor, I've been meaning to ask. What is your plan to defeat Salem?"

"I intend to keep the relics from falling into her hands. And unite the world while I can."

"But that's not defeating her. That's you winning."

"Is there a difference?"

"I meant stopping her. She has to be stopped."

"Much like myself Salem is doomed to walk Remnant until the relics are united. There is no way to stop her as such."

"I don't understand."

"Much like me. She is immortal."

"So she would keep transferring, if we killed her."

"My girl," he paused and took a deep breath. "I promised not to lie to you. I also promised to tell you the whole truth."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that she is not immortal the way I am. She does not reincarnate. Instead, her body is nearly invincible. She's capable of inhuman regeneration."

"What?" Oscar interrupted Ozpin before I could say something. "Why didn't you tell me?" He made them sound schizophrenic as he did.

"There has been much to go over. We've been preparing to split fall and spring once more," Ozpin said, voice almost pleading with Oscar. "You need to learn the magic required of you. Before Cinder Fall arrives once more."

"So you don't have a plan to win?" I asked. They turned back towards me.

"I have many plans to win. I have even more plans to not lose. But I have no plans of killing Salem. It is impossible, but that does not mean we have lost. That does not mean it is over for us."

"But she has the relic of knowledge," I protested.

"Does she? Then why were we assaulted by agents of her's looking for it? I think it's safe to say that wherever the relic is, Salem does not have it. At least not yet. And we are looking for Jaune Arc." Ozpin tapped his cane on the floor. "These are confusing times. I admit that they are dire, but we have not yet lost. Now, do you have any other questions for me?"

I shook my head.

"Very good. The plan is to keep the relics and maidens out of her hands until humanity is ready. That is my plan to win. We are not directionless. We move with purpose. And when Cinder Fall strikes again we will be ready to defeat her. As you have several times. All is not lost. Remember that."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I found my teammates and I shared with them what I learned from Ozpin.

"Salem is… immortal?" Blake asked.

I nodded. I didn't know what to think.

"Then… it's hopeless," Yang murmured.

"Not per se," Weiss countered. "Ozpin's immortal too. And his plans get foiled all the time. Just look at Haven and Beacon."

"So what? She's foilable but unbeatable?" Yang asked.

"He said more. He said he was going to ask two of you to become the new spring and fall maidens," I told them.

"Jaune was right," Weiss breathed. "But not you? Ruby?"

"He said that because of my eyes that would be putting too many eggs in one basket. Those were his exact words," I replied. "He said he would ask me if the rest of you said no. He also brought up Penny as an option."

"And… what did you tell him, Ruby?" Blake asked.

"I told him I would do it, if he couldn't find another candidate."

"Ruby…" Blake growled.

"What? Fighting Salem is the right thing to do."

"You're hardly well, still getting over Jaune. You need to think this through," Weiss said.

Coming from her the words bit deep. She had the right to say that more than any of my other teammates. I looked away and wanted to pull my hood up. I sniffled once but I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't.

"But if she's immortal and she has the relic of knowledge doesn't that make us screwed?" Yang asked.

"That's what I said. He said we shouldn't be so sure that Salem knows where the relic is because of the girls that attacked us."

"Jaune's sisters. Maybe," Weiss said. "It's a good point. No one knows where Jaune is."

"Don't you two start that again." Yang looked between Weiss and I.

"Please," Blake agreed with Yang. "Jaune betrayed us. Just like Adam betrayed me. The sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be."

"It doesn't make any sense. By all accounts." Weiss's nostrils flared at my sister. "It's not our fault that things don't add up."

"Let's not devolve into Jaune-talk again." Yang held up both hands. "Which one of us is becoming a maiden."

"I'll do it," Weiss said. "The magic may be easiest to disguise as my semblance. At least more than the rest of you. Especially if my sister becomes the winter maiden. Both living huntress Schnees would have the same or similar powers."

"And Penny will take the other half?" Yang asked.

"Is that okay?" I wondered.

"It's probably what she was built for, all things considered," Blake said.

"Ozpin only groomed us but Ironwood had her made for this purpose," Weiss agreed. "It's probably why her project got greenlit. The maidens."

"Kinda scary when you put it like that." Yang worried her lip. "Being born for it."

"I'll talk to her about it," I said. "I'll make sure she's okay with it."

"Wait but Cinder has both spring and fall. Won't they transfer to the same person?" Blake asked.

"That's what I went to talk to him about. He said he was going to split the power with his magic. He wasn't really specific on the details," I informed them.

"That's magic for you," Yang reclined, putting both hands behind her head as she rested back on her bedding. "It's obscure and makes no sense. Hey Weiss could you replicate the powers of a maiden with enough dust if you had it?"

"Probably. Maybe Professor Goodwitch could too. It would take quite a bit of dust, though, that's just going off of what we saw Cinder do with her air magic. We're also not sure what all she's doing with dust or with her semblance. We don't even know what her power really is."

"Good enough. I suppose that it makes sense for you to take it then. It'll just look like your semblance but with dust," Yang returned.

"I keep forgetting that Cinder has a semblance on top of being two maidens," Blake said. "How are we going to stop her?"

"We could keep using Ruby's eyes. That seems to be working," Yang muttered.

"How does the power with your eyes even work, Ruby?" Blake asked.

"I'm not really sure. It seems to be all instinctual. What I've done with it," I reached up like I was going to touch my eyes and my hands hesitated near my brow.

"Like what you did to the dragon?" Weiss asked.

"Just like that. I don't really know how I'm doing it."

"But it worked at Haven. It drove Cinder back when I thought she was going to burn us all to a crisp," Yang said. "Emerald had to carry her out of there."

"Speaking of, Emerald's semblance is also very dangerous. The illusions." Blake waved a hand in front of her eyes. "She could get any one of us."

"And we don't know what Mercury can do either. Yang you fought him at the tournament. Was there anything that felt like his semblance," I asked.

"Not really. He was just good."

"Who fought him at Haven?" Blake asked.

"Jaune," Weiss and I said together.

"Ugh," Blake managed.

"And me, for a bit again," Yang said.

"At least Tyrian is dead," Weiss muttered out of the corner of her mouth. She leaned her head on her palm.

"At the cost of a new, more dangerous Roman Torchwick. Cloud Strife sounds like an actual fighter," Blake murmured. "And Neapolitan is out there with him right now. That's how he's staying at large."

"Who else is there? Hazel and those girls who attacked us in Argus?" I asked.

"I think that's it." Yang said. "I mean, aside from, you know, Jaune."

Blake threw her pillow at Yang's head. "You brought him up this time."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Not that I'm bored," I sounded exasperated even to my own ears, "but why can't we just use an airship to take these supplies out to Amity."

"The components for Amity's construction are far too heavy. All that weight would require precious dust we should be saving for the launch itself. And the Grimm that will come after," Penny said with her usual enthusiasm.

"It just makes for a long, very long supply run."

"At least the tundra is scenic."

"Totally."

I started to doze off. The truck was rumbling along just right for it. A dull melody that was putting me right to sleep.

"Ruby!" I startled awake at Penny's voice. "I just wanted to say how excited I am to be working with you in a professional capacity. As friends!" She giggled a little.

It was a touch infectious and I laughed too. "Me too, Penny."

"Relationships are so interesting. And varied."

"Speaking of friends. Have you been able to make any new ones? Since, you know…" I trailed off.

"Now that I'm the official protector of Mantle I don't really have a team any more. General Ironwood says I don't have time for friends."

"Oh uh… how do you feel about that?"

"I feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do, and the things I want to do. Is that normal?"

I laughed a little. "That's about as normal as it gets Penny."

We were quiet for a while.

"Ruby…" she trailed at the same time I said "Penny."

"You first," she said.

"Uh, okay. I talked to Ozpin the other day. We talked about making you one of the maidens. My team and I discussed how you were probably built with that in mind. I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you, though."

"I understand your worry, Ruby. But I am more than up for the task. Either spring or fall, I don't really mind."

"Well, okay if you're sure. What was it you were going to ask about?"

"I was going to ask how you were with your relationships, Ruby. You asked after mine after all. It seems like something a friend would do."

"Well what did you mean?" With Penny it was hard to be sure.

"Well you have had a boyfriend now. What was that like?"

"It was uh good." I wasn't quite sure what she was looking for.

"I've never had a boyfriend of my own. I've never talked to the General about it, either. Or my father."

"I wasn't very good at talking to my family about it either. Romantic stuff that is. It took me forever to tell Yang and by the time I did… well I didn't so much as tell her so much as she caught us."

"Caught you?"

"We were just kissing." I sounded a touch defensive. "I mean, it was going places if I had my say in it but we were just kissing when she walked in on us. She found out that way."

"Going places? Had you and Jaune _been_ places before then?" If not for the emphasis I wasn't sure Penny would have understood what I meant. Instead she seemed to hunch down a little and her eyes were bright and curious.

"Just once or twice." I confessed to her. Looking away from her eyes. I smiled a little. Crimson riding on my cheeks.

It felt good to talk about it though. Girl to girl.

"Ruby! That was scandalous of you. What happened next?" What was scandalous was Penny's attempt to dig for information.

I laughed. It was a touch funny in retrospect. Plus her blatant attempt to live vicariously through me was endearing. "Yang pulled him off of me and slammed him into a wall."

"So… he was on top of you, then." Penny gasped. Putting both hands over her mouth. "And your sister just ripped you apart."

I nodded. "I'd been trying to wrap my legs around him but...And Jaune just sort of stood there looking dazed. It wasn't because of being slammed into the wall. He's fairly robust. He was just sort of out of it because we'd been kissing. I might be a good kisser. You could, like, see it." I laughed.

"Ruby!" She gasped again. "Do you mean… his…?"

I nodded, laughing a little more. "Through the hem of his pants."

"Was he… was he large?" Penny phrased awkwardly, blushing whisper.

"I think so. Not so much until he was inside. If that makes any kind of sense. Then it seemed like he was huge but in a good way. A really awesome feel good kind of way."

"Ruby!" She gasped a third time. She was smiling and blushing. Her father had really gone all in on making her blush anatomically correct.

I laughed some more.

"Is everything alright up there?" My uncle called from the back.

"We're fine!" We said at the same time through giggling voices and thick blushes.

"Penny are you… are you built, down there?" I asked in a whisper.

"I'm designed to one day have children. If I so choose. With the right upgrades as pregnancy goes on. My father thought it was important."

"He told you?"

"Oh yes. He gave me _the _talk. He thought it was important that I have the freedom of expression that having children is. The eggs are from donors which were engineered. And I don't quite have a monthly cycle. But other than that things are roughly the same."

"You don't have a cycle? Brag about it, you queen."

"Ruby!" She giggled again. I did too.

"How roughly the same are we talking about here?" I laughed.

"Ru_-by_!" She broke into hysterics. She wiped a tear from her eye. "The same enough."

We laughed for a long time in muted giggles as the truck rumbled along.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	56. 7th Heaven I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I didn't find anything on myself or my sisters on Merlot's computers. I was guessing that that laboratory predated me and them. Besides, if the mustached man was right, I was doomed to never find anything on my sisters in Merlot's labs. I was only digging through his computers for myself, then. And I really just didn't have the energy for it and I transferred the notes to my scroll for later bookkeeping and examination.

Peach, Neo, and I descended back into Nibelhiem and I took a train from there back to Atlas. I said my farewells to Peach and her teacher. I wasn't sure I'd ever see the pink eyed, blonde bruiser again, but you never really know. She'd done good work by me. I left her with a dust crystal to remember me by for that.

I had to find out who the mustached man was. I consulted Aurum but with only a vague description he didn't have much of any support for me. He was helpful, I suppose, as helpful as he could be given how lackluster my ability to give details on the man was. I mean I knew he had a dark blue suit trimmed in yellow but that was only so helpful. The green eyes and mustache were, I was guessing, more solid but only slightly.

Aurum then put me in contact with the group who had been in the know on the General's secret project. There was a bar down in Mantle where they met and I was told to go there. This group, this Avalanche, had details that I needed if I wanted to stay on top of things.

They called the bar Seventh Heaven.

The bar looked like a rickety enough place. It sort of reminded me of the Malachites' bar. Except the Malachites' bar was nicer. If such a thing could be believed.

I swept into the place with Neo beside me and I had a quick look around. There was a bar area with some seats and a few tables. There was also a pac-ping machine in one of the corners that didn't interest me much at all. The place was all brown wood and grey brick. It was covered in soot from the mines and the whole place could use a thorough cleaning. I was wary of even ordering anything from their bar.

A redheaded faunus cleaned a glass with a rag behind the counter. Her hair was done up in a ponytail and she had pretty brown eyes. She had Valean features with a bit of an oval face and a long fox tail which swished behind her as she worked.

She wore armor over a tight blue shirt that exposed her smooth flat stomach and her bellybutton. She had a red scarf over her forehead and loose brown pants around her hips leading down to silvery shin guards and boots. They looked heavy.

I could feel the distant hum of aura wafting off of her. She wasn't some simple barkeep. She must be a member of Avalanche. And Avalanche must be a hunter organization or at least attempting to be one.

Neo shuffled up beside me and looked up at me. "Well Neo, what will you have?"

She shrugged as though to say, 'surprise me.'

"Hey now! What can I do for the two of you?" The bartender asked, she sounded upbeat.

"I'm Cloud, this is Neo, we're looking for Avalanche and a drink, I suppose. Two house specials. Whatever that is, while we wait would be nice."

She nodded. "I'm Jasper. We're just waiting for a few more. So that'll be two Cosmo Canyons. Coming right up." She sounded enthusiastic.

She poured two red drinks for Neo and I. I sat at one of the tables and Neo pulled up a chair beside me. Jasper came by and dropped the drinks off for us. I thanked her and opened up a tab. I could afford plenty of drinks so I really wasn't worried about it.

The drink had a sweet, deep strawberry and raspberry flavor. It was bordering on too sugary for me but Neo seemed to like it because she slammed it and held up a finger for another one.

I ordered for her and Jasper came around again with another glass of the red liquid.

There came a jingle at the door and another faunus came in. She was armed with a crossbow staff and had two cute little sheep ears to either side of her head. She wore mostly green under a more tan-green overcoat. She had curly glowing white hair and bright sharp green eyes.

She took us and Jasper by the counter in for a moment before she paced further inside.

I leaned both elbows on the table and rested my chin on my hands. I waited around to see what would happen with the newcomer.

"I'm looking for Avalanche," she said to Jasper. Loud enough that I could hear it.

"You've found us. You must be Fiona with the Happy Huntresses."

Fiona nodded.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Jasper asked.

Fiona shook her head. "I'm just here to listen to what you have to say about the General's secret project. We know the general is moving supplies out to Amity instead of Mantle. We're just not sure why. You're supposed to know."

Two more gentlemen entered and I watched them while taking a drink from my cosmo canyon. The first was taller than the other. Maybe about as tall as I was and had a sidearm. It looked like a water pistol to me. He wore a green shirt and brown pants and had a red bandanna tied around his head. It didn't hide his wolf ears.

The last was the rounder sort and he had a pale shirt and he too had a red bandanna. He was built with wide shoulders, however, despite his round build. He had a machine gun around his back and a bandolier of rounds across his chest. I couldn't spot his faunus trait if he had one but that didn't make him human. Blake had managed to hide her trait from me for months so there was that.

"Meet Avalanche," Jasper introduced with a bit of flair, waving a hand.

The taller fellow said, "I'm Bisque. And this is Wenge." He gestured to the man by his side.

"We need your help to hold the SDC accountable for its crimes," Jasper went on. "Avalanche is a sort of network for disparaged workers. Like the old White Fang in Mantle. We've been getting reports from workers about the General's project."

"You want us to help you fight the SDC," Fiona sounded incredulous. Her face twisted into shock.

"In exchange for our information, yes," Bisque shot back. "We've been getting all kinds of reports from our union about the project so we know what we're talking about with it."

"The Happy Huntresses aren't above trading blows with the law but this seems like a bit much. What would we even be doing?"

"Blowing up a dust mine." Jasper put a hand on one hip. "Both the Happy Huntresses and… you two, Cloud and Neapolitan." She pointed at Neo and I. "Came highly recommended. From different people, of course."

I could see it. Aurum had all the reason to recommend me considering how quickly I'd solved his problems. Unfortunately I wasn't behind blowing up a mine very much.

"If you want to resort to terrorism why not join the White Fang?" I asked. That was the sort of business the White Fang was in to.

"Lots of reasons," Jasper shrugged. "The White Fang are about murder now. The mine we're targeting will be mostly abandoned. At least with the embargo going on."

"And this is the only way you'll talk about the General's secret project?" I asked. "A symbolic attack?"

"We also have Lien we can offer you," Bisque cut in.

Fiona snorted and I shook my head. "I don't need Lien," I muttered.

"The Happy Huntresses aren't about money. It's not why we do what we do," Fiona agreed with me a little.

"But you're about fighting the giants. The SDC. The Atlas Military," Wenge seemed to protest. His voice had a slight whine to it. "We could really use all the help we can get."

"The Happy Huntresses will find another way to learn about the General's plans," Fiona decided. She turned to leave. "I can only hope you are smart enough to say the same." She nodded at me.

"I probably can't let this opportunity pass me by. Thanks," I told her.

"You'll engage in this terrorism?" Her jaw dropped open.

"Sweetheart, I've murdered people in cold, cold blood. This is nothing. They're not even planning on killing anyone." I laughed. I pulled out my pipe and packed some greens into it. "Easy money," I said.

She glowered at me with a look that could have frozen vodka and turned her chin up. "You're laughing about it? People could die and you're just laughing." She swore at me.

I laughed even harder. "I'm a monster, babe. There are all kinds of people like me. You should get used to it. I thought you were a huntress."

"I graduated from Atlas Academy. Of course I'm a huntress." She pulled her staff on me. I stood up and activated my semblance and pulled my longsword from my shoulder.

"There are things they don't teach you at school, kido. I can give you a lesson in it if you want."

She was just a kid. She had no idea what things were really like. She didn't know about monsters like Tyrian or Raven or _me_. I was a monster of power and ungodly strength, too. She didn't know the heights that some hunters could reach. She thought she was on the level. I could feel from my sixth sense that just wasn't the case. I could pull her apart.

The vitriol on her face was enough to shatter that frozen vodka from before. The blatant disgust made me want to laugh some more. She pointed her crossbow at me. It was loaded. I could cut the bolt easily. I was fast enough. Unless it moved near light speed like a laser or a magnetic accelerated round.

"I should stop you. The right thing to do would be to shut you down right here and now. Aggravating the SDC is the wrong move, almost always."

"Careful, little Miss. You're not a match for me and I've left quite the trail of bodies behind me." Blue flames licked at my flesh. White wisps crawled at the ceiling of the bar, and the members of Avalanche held their collective breaths. The wood beams over my head shed my power like rainwater and it collapsed back into the room. "What's one more for someone like me?" I asked.

She spun her weapon about and replaced it on her back. She exhaled hard. She gave me one last stiff look. I could feel the room slightly disrupted by her aura. Her anger was a lashing flame. She wanted to stop me but was thinking better of it.

We'd sized each other up and I knew that she knew that I could destroy her. It was common knowledge now. Her sixth sense must have screamed out at her in warning.

"This isn't over." She pointed at the floor for emphasis with each word.

"This is nothing." I returned, sheathing my sword. "Not even my top twenty."

She marched out of the door of the bar. She slammed it shut behind her hard enough to rattle the windows of the small, dingy bar.

"Cloud…" Jasper murmured. "You'll help us?"

"I need the details. I also need a guarantee of my information. Then I'll help you with your bombing."

"It's the abandoned Tilvari mine. It's to the north of here. Used to be mined by SDC when it was more profitable to be mining. They'll want to go back to doing it there once the embargo is lifted," Bisque said. "We'll be hitting it at night when no one is around."

"We want to shut that down. Make it harder for old man Schnee," Jasper continued for him. "People die in his mines all the time and nothing happens. Nothing changes. People are dying in the mines right now. We want to cause him all the problems we can."

"I don't care about your reasons. Tell me about the job."

They all shared a look.

"You don't really mean that, do you Cloud?" Wenge asked. He seemed nervous, a little on edge about it.

"Of course I do. It's a job to me. And nothing else. I'll get you all in and out safe and sound. Then you can tell me about the General's project and we can move on with our lives." I claimed. "You don't want to be my friends. It's not a good place to be."

I didn't have the time for this. They needed to know where I stood. I wasn't their friend. I was their employee. That's how this was going to work. I didn't have time for it. They didn't need to be wrapped up in me, either. I was a mess and I didn't need to drag people who were more or less innocent into my fuck up of a life.

They were subcontracting me because I was dangerous and I knew what I was doing. I knew my way around explosives and I knew how to deal with dust, at least in a loose sense. I was exactly what they needed. As a contractor. Not as a companion for life. I already fucked up enough friendships. Just look at where I stood with team RWBY. The things I'd done to my own other friends rampaged through my thoughts.

A low hiss of '_kill her, and the boy_' echoed through my mind. I would never forget it. The lamp had been right. Mother was more than just a memory. She haunted me.

I remembered what I'd done to the last of team JNPR. These people didn't know what they'd be getting into if they wanted to be my friends. And Neo and I weren't exactly friends. We worked well together, our goals aligned, our powers were useful in combination, but that was it. At least I thought so. I'd certainly miss her if she was gone, though. Maybe she was working her way into my heart.

The sadistic bitch. Unbelievably cruel of her, that was.

I relaxed and let my power go. My semblance faded into nothing. I missed the power as soon as it was gone. The steady beat of energy made me feel whole. Without it I felt a gaping lack. I wanted to keep that flow going. I wanted it all the time. And the charge felt completely empty now. I felt completely at a loss.

They all looked at one another again. Jasper nodded to Bisque and that seemed to do it for them.

"We have wheels to make our get-away on. And we want to drop the mine, not cause a massive explosion. Not in the middle of town. The point is to just cause a collapse in. It's a pit mine, you see." Bisque said.

"You'll need to be careful. Any application of dust could cause a chain reaction and blow up the entire mine. Take part of the city with it." I warned. I crossed one arm and put a hand on my chin as I considered it.

"The explosives we have in mind are small. Just big enough to bring down some of the support beams and cause a collapse." Jasper informed me.

Neo held up a hand.

"Another drink for my friend here?" I asked. Her glass was empty and she waved it at me loosley, tapping me in the side with it, gripping the glass from above.

Jasper nodded. She moved around behind the counter and shook up another glass of the crimson liquid. Neo liked that house special, I guess. She had a sweet tooth and a half which explained it.

"Then what's your extraction plan?" I asked once Jasper got Neo squared away again.

"We have a truck, we were going to drive away in the chaos," Wenge said. "Do you think that will be enough?"

"With my help, sure. I've got quite the illusionist with me. You don't want to be caught up by Atlas Security. And the last thing we want to be snatched up in is a firefight."

"We can take them," Jasper said. She had enthusiasm for it, that was for sure. I imagined that Blake was once like that. But instead for the White Fang and not Avalanche.

Jasper was young. Maybe a year or so younger than my biological age, not my chronological age. She was much older than me going by that marker. She had a fire to her I couldn't help but admire. I even found it a few shades shy of attractive.

"You don't have the experience for it. You'll lose." I disagreed. "Better leave any fighting to Neo and I, if you can help it. Only fight if you're cornered and need to. Any of you ever kill somebody?"

They looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Yeah, leave it to me and Neo." I sighed. These kids had no idea what they were in for. If they weren't careful, they'd die. "And I'll set the charges. Better leave that to me too." I chewed on my pipe.

Amateurs.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	57. 7th Heaven II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I rolled up on the Seventh Heaven on a motorcycle with Neo riding behind me with both arms wrapped around my waist. She exhaled through her nose in a slow sigh.

"Good evening Mantle. Good evening SDC. Good evening Mother who lives in the corner of my eye but disappears when I try and look at you. What do you think Neo? We finally going to get what we deserve?" I asked.

She squeezed my chest tightly.

"I meant about Cinder. Though you and I probably deserve to have other shit happen to us. Don't you think? Just a little?"

I stroked the engine and it went off like a gun while I sat outside the bar and waited for Avalanche. The cobblestone street wasn't crowded with the little motorcycle. I'd seen some bigger models that called out to me but for now this little one was enough for me.

"I mean the shit we've done..." I laughed. I laughed hard. It was funny. It was all so, so funny. Why wasn't I able to laugh at me like this all the time? "The shit we've done we probably deserve some horrible shit to happen to us. Probably something like exactly what happened. They call that karma. Not what will happen to us for what we've done, the shit that _is_ happening to us for what we did."

"You with Roman," I murmured. "I imagine you did some horrible awful shit. I'm not worried about it. I do awful shit too."

She squeezed me tighter. I embraced the feeling. The touch of another was something so simple. It was something so alien to me at the moment but it was all too human. Maybe I was just stopping Neo from getting close to me. Maybe she wanted to be close to me. Maybe I was the only real stopping block.

I wanted to embrace it, even if it was something from a sadist like Neo. She got off on torture and killing people. And hey, I liked it too. I liked my boot on the necks of those who would stand against me. I liked killing Tyrian. I savored in the memory of his blood pouring out onto the street. I wasn't about pain but I was about killing. I was this sort of monster that reveled in death.

Would Ruby love me now? If she could see the things I'd become would she pull at my hair and kiss my chest? Would her heart beat faster for me still? I could distantly remember the pulse between her legs. I remembered the taste of her sweat, it was sweet like cinnamon. I remembered when she rode me out in an Anima forest and I recalled pressing her against the tile of a shower. Breathless moans leaving her little frame. The skin of her neck against my teeth. Her full lips against mine, so tender against my own harshness. The memory of it was enough to make me shift in the motorcycle seat with Neo clinging to me.

I wasn't sure I had the answer. Or maybe I just didn't want to accept the answer I had. Maybe I didn't like it. Maybe I was just depressing and wallowing in it. Or maybe I had a good point. Maybe at some point somewhere I'd crossed a line.

Bugs crawled around behind my face. I could feel it in my eyes and ears tonight. I picked at the inside of my ear and rubbed an eye, slow and hard.

The soft whisperings of Mother were fit enough to drive me mad. They were loud tonight. Or maybe not. It was hard to tell. It didn't exactly come with a volume setting or a good frame of reference. There was nothing to compare the loudness to. It came and it went. The bugs were like that too.

I was an alien monster to Ruby. I was part Grimm somewhere inside of me. Maybe that was how I'd tracked the Nuckelavee so well. I knew its heart because my own heart beat that same black. My blood and insides were red but so was that of the Grimm. I was inhuman.

Would Weiss still give me that small affectionate smile I remembered gleaming at me in the early Mistrali dawn? A teasing smirk on her blushing face with her hair down around her shoulders.

Would Yang still laugh when I bit back against her?

Could I ever go back? Could I ever be forgiven because I killed my friends? Maybe I really should just kill myself and be done with it. If I turned it on me… if I evened it out… would that make it better? Could I get in to heaven if I killed myself?

My friends would want me to go on. It wasn't fair. I just wanted to die.

I pulled my pipe out and took a long draw on it. I had a lot I wanted to relax about. My thoughts were wild and creeping up on me.

I'd never have another calm and patient conversation with Ren. Nor would I ever share a bubbly dialogue with Nora. That was my fault. I may blame Mother but I had been the one to draw my blade against them.

What was Ruby feeling right now as I set off to cause more chaos? Did she still think of me? Did I deserve to have her think of me like that? No. I didn't. And it wasn't because I was born a monster. It was because I embraced it. I tortured, maimed, and killed with impunity.

Ruby would never do something like that. Her heart would go out to each and every person she ever hurt. Meanwhile I was content to smoke and forget 'em.

I exhaled a long batch of smoke out into the cool Mantle night air. I let the earthly odor and feeling settle over me. It was fast. Inhaling drugs worked quick like that. Much faster than anything other than injections. Ghostly hands wrapped over me. The cold suddenly didn't feel so bad and Neo's arms felt nice and warm.

Her hands gripped one another tight, just under my armor where she could be comfortable. "We deserve to die. Me and you. You and I." I told her. "And it'll get us, too. Just you wait and see."

Avalanche came backing out in a little turquoise truck. It backfired a little as it came rolling away from the bar.

I gestured to them with a wave and let them lead the way down the street. It wasn't busy out and I was able tailgate Avalanche pretty closely as we made our way to the mine.

Thoughts krept in on me as I drove under the influence. It was actually pretty easy. I'd fought Tyrian under the influence and that went well enough. My control was fine and as we slipped into traffic I was aware.

I put my pipe in my pocket and out of sight. I didn't need some officer to pull me over because of basically nothing before the operation even started.

We rode up on this massive open pit mine and stopped our vehicles. It had a spiraling depth of road to it for heavy machinery with the walls braced by metallic supports.

"Neo, watch the rides."

She nodded. She leaned her parasol against her shoulder and leaned herself in turn against my new bike.

It was a shallow gold and stripped with platinum. It was easier on the eyes than Yang's bike was. The colors were dull and metallic unlike the bright colors of Bumble Bee. She even named her bike. Maybe I'd name mine too. Maybe one I was a little more attached to than this. I could fucking afford it, I'd bought a whole plane. A nice bike would be nothing. Depending on just how nice it was.

I stepped away and Neo took my hand for a moment and squeezed my fingers. I hesitated for a moment and grabbed her hand back and returned her squeeze.

Then I stepped away for real.

Avalanche swung their way out of their truck. The vehicle heaved as Wenge made his way out of the back of it with his machine gun in hand. Bisque stepped out of the driver's seat, pistol drawn and at the ready. Jasper stepped out of shotgun with an easy grin and a wave at me.

I stared down into the large open pit of the mine with the spiraling road.

"You didn't forget the charges, did you?" I asked.

"Oh, right," Wenge mumbled. He tossed an explosive at my head which I caught.

"Where am I setting this up?" I asked. I began to step down the rings into the large open pit. Blowing the sides of the place would cause a landslide and bury the dust that was ready and waiting for extraction.

"One over there." Bisque pointed. "And another over… there. That should just about do it. Then we blow it remotely."

I laid down a wall of the place on both legs and I walked up to a strut he'd indicated and began to strap the charge into place with duct tape. I set it for remote activation with a push of a button.

"So far this is going very well!" Jasper exclaimed next to me.

A small Schnee Dust Company marked airship spun overhead. It came in low and fast.

"Go set the last charge." I told her. I drew my sword and advanced on two men descending from the plane. I activated my semblance and drew my sword. I flew up to match the height of the plane with a mighty leap. I bladebeamed it.

The beam crashed into the hovering plane and it began to spin out from the tremendous attack. Pieces flew off as it started to spiral into the massive pit. I watched the plane start to level out but it was clearly struggling to remain in the air. I had been hoping to outright destroy it but this was close enough.

I turned back to the two who had descended on guide wires. They were picking themselves off the ground where they fell from the spinning plane.

I stepped up to them and charged my semblance.

"You must be Cloud Strife." The redhead said. He coughed a little but stood firm. He pulled an electro-stick on me as he stood up and caught his breath. The other man just raised his fists with a quiet grunt.

"That's me," I spoke quietly. Speaking quiet is always more threatening than speaking loud. At least in my experience.

_Kill the girl. And the boy. _

Like that. Exactly like that.

"I'm Rosso. And this is Rude." He gestured with his stick. He brushed dust off of his slacks. They were both wearing full suits and Rude was even wearing a tie. Rosso on the other hand was wearing a pair of goggles up above his eyes and he had an exposed chest under his jacket. He had tattoos next to his eyes, as well.

"We're the Turks. We're going to fuck up six ways to Sunday."

"I'll make this quick." I lowered my sword down at Rosso.

He laughed like I didn't just cut down the plane he was riding in. "Get 'em Rude."

Rude came at me with his fists. I blocked the heavy string of attacks he came at me with using the wide side of my blade. I spaced him out with the giant sword. I swung it around my body and into his gut and knocked him off his feet.

Rosso came at me in an electric blue blur. It was bright blue unlike my deep wafting blue semblance. A speed semblance perhaps. He moved behind me and hit me in the back of the head with his stick. I spun to deal with him but he just blurred away again.

Rude came at me once more. He was enormously strong, but slow. His partner more than made up for his lack of speed, however.

_"Cloud's engaged the Turks."_ Came through a mic in my ear. It was Jasper's voice. _"How long until the charges are set?"_

My semblance activated. When Rosso came by for another swing I blocked his attack on my sword and reached out and grabbed him by the throat.

"Rude! Help!" I slammed him into the ground through his words.

I was at my most dangerous in a one on one fight. There were certain adaptations I had to make in a two on one fight that made me considerably less formidable. For one I couldn't stand there and non-limit Cross-Slash my enemies. It just took too much time while an enemy could come up behind me.

Rude tackled me but I rolled rather than be grabbed by him. I came back up to my feet.

I flew at Rude and brought my sword in a tremendous swing upwards. It caught him in the chest and smashed him into the air. I jumped and swiped my sword down over my head in a brutal strike downwards that slammed him into the ground.

Rosso appeared next to where I landed and hit me in the back with his staff, making me stumble forward. He moved around and hit me in the gut, lightning fast. I grunted and bent over.

He made for another pass but I blocked it with the wide side of Crocea Mors and slashed him to the ground such that he landed on his ass and a blue crackling of aura went over him. He wasn't out just yet but he couldn't keep getting hit by me while I was Limit Broken. He just couldn't afford it, didn't have the aura.

Rude came at me from the other side and I kicked him in the chest and brought my sword down on his head, forcing him to sidestep.

I pulled a lightning crystal from my pocket and crushed it. I swept my hand towards Rosso but Rude reached out and grabbed my arm. I stared at him for a moment in surprise before it blew up in both of our faces.

I kick-jumped my way back to my feet easily and was just in time to block another swing of Rosso's electro-stick. He pushed me back on a pocket of air rather than forcing my feet to slide over the ground. He pushed me all the way back into the side of the pit along the dirt road we fought on.

I flew straight up on the wall and front-flipped over his head, I swung my sword at his back as I flipped over him but he moved out of the way with a narrow dodge.

I backflipped in place in his direction and nearly pinned him against the wall with an upward slicing aerial attack. He tried to step in and do some damage with his staff but I followed him with two horizontal slashes that forced him to block the first and jump out of the way of the second.

Rude came up on me in a huge bear hug. He grabbed me from behind and suplexed me. I felt my neck slam against the ground.

I slid back to my feet, already hovering back up. Rude clubbed me once and I thrust Crocea Mors forward and caught him. Then I pulled him into the air with it and then slammed him back into the ground.

_"Charges are almost set."_ Wenge's voice came through my head. _"And done. We're good to go."_

I backflipped in place and hit Rude with a devastating falling aerial attack that swung horizontally. It forced him to slide back and made his aura flare up in a deep electric yellow.

I chased after him and kicked him in the middle of the chest. Then I kicked him in the side of the leg, making him fall, then I brought my blade around on the side of his head.

Rosso clashed with my blade before I could bring it around on the side of his partner's head. He grunted under the force of my early executed attack.

"Gah! What are you made out of?" Rosso grunted.

"I'm a hunter. A real one." I put my shoulder into the side of the blade and slammed the entire thing into his chest and knocked him to the ground.

I was still holding on to my semblance. In a two on one fight like this I needed the speed and strength buffs more than I needed to spend it. Without the movement improvements I'd be unable to keep up with Rosso's speed. So unless I cornered him with it, I'd still need it. It was a difficult balance to play.

So I chased him after I knocked him back and brought my sword down in a massive downwards swing. I gambled and spent my Limit on a Cross-Slash. I only caught Rosso in the last two swings of it but it shattered Rosso's aura and slammed him back into the crater wall.

Rude came at me but even in my non-elevated state he was terribly slow. I swept my blade at him which he caught on his knuckles. Then I hit him in the gut with my blade, and after that I kneed him.

I tapped my microphone. "Set off the charges."

_"But Cloud…!" _Bisque's voice came through.

"Just do it."

I felt the charges go off and the rockslide begin as the struts collapsed. I hovered above and backflipped three times against the wall of the crater and escaped. I landed neatly beside Avalanche and Neo as the walls came tumbling in.

I looked down and over and saw Rosso and Rude climbing back on guide wires in the still recovering plane. I watched it take off with the two 'Turks' in tow. I felt almost positive that I'd be seeing them again.

"Let's mosey," I told them. I straddled my bike. Neo hopped on and wrapped her arms around me again. She pressed herself tight against me.

I watched and waited for Avalanche to climb back into their truck.

Then I spun off on a cloud of dirt.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	58. 7th Heaven III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I weaved my motorcycle in and out of traffic and past first responders heading the opposite direction, back towards the mine. It was a promising sign, one that we'd gotten away clear. Neo and I were good at making these sort of operations look easy. Almost too easy. That was apart from my encounter with the Turks.

It was hard to be sure what to make of them. Perhaps the Schnee Dust Company's militant arm. They had to have something for a long time considering the White Fang and all. They'd been at war far longer than I'd been alive.

In places the Atlas Military wasn't willing to reach the SDC had to have its own armed forces. That meant armed huntsman. That meant people with semblances like Rosso and Rude.

If I hadn't been along Avalanche would have been picked apart. They were amateurs at best. They had know idea how strong people could really get if they thought a machine gun could honestly keep them safe.

I rolled up on Seventh Heaven and the truck slid into its bay behind me. I wasn't hurt too bad from my scuffle with the Turks. Maybe I was rocking fifty percent aura. Maybe a touch more.

They'd never really solidly gotten me except for when Rosso smacked me on the back of the head with his electric-stick. That had smarted. But I was a tough cookie. I could handle it.

"Wew! We did it!" Wenge cheered. He was solidly high-fived by Jasper. _Clap_.

She turned to me and lifted a hand and gave me a thumbs-up and a cocky grin.

I kicked out my kickstand. I lifted a leg and smoothly dismounted the bike. Neo slid off the back with me. She'd been covering us from cameras, using her semblance. She was super handy to have around. I wasn't sure where I'd be without her.

I'd probably be majorly worse off, though. Her power had incredible utility. I could see why Roman had picked her up. She was unbelievably useful.

I swung off my bike and made my way up to the bar. I lifted the door open and held it open for Neo. She nodded up at me as she stepped past.

"You were amazing, Cloud! You should have seen him fighting two of the Turks at once!" Jasper exclaimed. She had her own weapon, a machete still strapped to her side. She mimed punching forward one or twice. "You gotta teach me how to fight like that!"

I pulled my pipe out. "That'll cost you," I said around it. "And I'm not sure you can afford it."

I could really use something to take the edge off of my reality.

Neo pulled at my sleeve as the rest of Avalanche filed into the bar. I knew she wanted another one of those overly sweet drinks. She'd earned it so who was I to disparage it.

"Can I get two of those house specials?" I asked Jasper.

"Oh sure. On the house this time. You did such a great job. I don't know where we would be without you."

"You'd be dead," I told her calmly. "Unless...do you know your semblance?"

"I can turn into a sort of cloud of vapor. It helps with get-aways sometimes but it's not exactly combat oriented," Jasper said. She began to shake up my and Neo's drinks. "Wenge's makes him actually bulletproof and Bisque's is technopathy. It helps with computers on missions sometimes. He can hack almost anything."

I thought about Bisque's semblance and a computer in far away Mistral before I shook my head. I couldn't trust them with something like that. I'd have to find another way into that computer, if I ever did. It was entirely possible I'd never ever get into that computer in Merlot's laboratory. I also wasn't sure I wanted to. His little black book had brought me nothing but pain.

I nodded at Jasper. They had nothing that would have kept them safe from Rosso's attacks. Not really. And I still wasn't sure what the other man, Rude, what his semblance was or did.

I exhaled out a long train of smoke and let it wash me over. Getting my blood pumping always countered the effects of the indica. I needed another toke to help me relax now afterwards.

"Yeah, you may have died. Can I get you all to consider another choice of work. I'm not sure you're cut out for this."

"Well we can't all have amazing combat powers like yours. What was that? You almost took down their airship before the fight even started. You two should have seen it!" Jasper told Wenge and Bisque.

"Limit Breaker puts me in an elevated state. And there's a charge I can spend on an attack," I took another long draw off my pipe and blew up towards the ceiling.

"It was amazing. You can fly!"

"A little." I shrugged off her compliment. Ruby could fly too.

"Well next time-"

"Next time?" I asked. "This was a one time gig. You're getting it twisted. I'm not a member of Avalanche. You better have my info. I want to hear about what the General has been working on."

"Oh right," Jasper said. "You want to tell him, Bisque?"

Bisque nodded. I watched him take a seat at the bar and I followed him. Jasper put our drinks on the counter and Neo began chugging away at hers while I remained more reserved and sipped at it.

"Some faunus workers came to us a while ago. The General had been putting 'em to work on the old Colosseum," Bisque began. "Amity Colosseum that is."

"Amity?" I wondered. "Why?"

"That's the kicker. They were hauling long range communication equipment on board and digging up gravity dust. Near as we can tell it's a bid to undo the black-out," Bisque continued.

"He's trying to turn it into some kind of communication satellite," Jasper finished excitedly.

"You're sure? He's trying to use it to get communications back up and running between the kingdoms?" I asked. I looked down at Neo and she met my eye over her red drink. I hoped she didn't spill any of that. It would stain like you wouldn't believe.

This was… it was tentatively good news. Communications between the kingdoms used to rely on the tower's being up and running. All of them. Now that Beacon's was down it had caused a worldwide black-out. A bit of a finicky system if you asked me. Any real robust system needed to be able to withstand some wear and tear. It needed to be able to take assault.

They should have thought of that. They should have been prepared for catastrophe. I always was, though that could have been because I was a walking talking disaster myself.

"That's… pretty good news."

"Not for the faunus working minimum wage on it. It's not a livable amount," Bisque disagreed.

"I meant in the long run for all the kingdoms. We need communication back online, I'm sure even the common person has been hemorrhaging money because of it."

"Not really. Only the rich have been suffering. A common person's toils are the same as ever," Bisque went on. "The poor have been getting trodden on the same as before. With or without global communication. You think a dust miner's life changed much when communication went down? Other than the higher chance of being laid off due to the embargo it's the same as ever."

I grimaced. It could be true. Only the rich had stocks to sell and buy. But there wasn't anything I could do about that. I was only good at cracking skulls open. I couldn't reshape the world's economy. I didn't have the time. I didn't have the strength. I didn't have the money.

"Tell me more about this satellite." I demanded. It was why I was here. Not to worry about the woes of the poor. It was better for me to not think about. Plus I didn't even have free will whereas the poorest dust miner at least had that edge over me.

"Near as we can tell once it's up communication will be reestablished amongst those places that still have a tower. But that won't solve the problem in Vale." Bisque said. "So they must be planning on flying to Vale and getting communication squared away there. It might mean repairing Beacon tower to get everything truly back in working order. From there we'll have a fifth communication tower in the form of the satellite which can go where it needs to in order to keep things running."

I took a drink. So they probably still planned on repairing Beacon Tower. I felt a strong desire to be there for that. Beacon had been my home for longer than anywhere that wasn't a tank of blue liquid.

Which, call me crazy, but I thought that didn't really count.

Beacon had been where I made my friends. It was where JNPR was born. It was where RWBY was born. It was an important place in my heart.

Rebuilding something like Beacon was real, actual good. Like teaching Peach what little magic I knew had been. That had done me well, too. It reminded me that I didn't have to be a monster.

I stood to leave. Neo rose with me, she slammed back the last of her drink as she did. I left most of mine in the table.

"Cloud… wait." Jasper pleaded. "We're planning on hitting a Schnee company freighter next. Planning on sinking it to drive dust prices back up. People are hurting with the enormous supply and little demand. Will you help us?"

I had a thousand good reasons not to. I looked at the faunus in the eye. My eyes marched between them in turn.

"We promise to share any news we get with you. Any information we learn from our network. We just could use a little more help. If you can't help us, will you teach us some of what you know, at least. We're not asking for much."

I sighed. If I hadn't taught Peach recently my first instinct would be to say no. But teaching Peach had warmed my cold soul. It had been as good for me as it had been for her.

"I'll give you some lessons. The first one is to not attack that freighter. You barely got away with what you did this time."

"We have to do something," Wenge said.

"No you don't. Not before you're ready. You can do more good if you wait. If you're patient. Organizing the people into real workers unions is fantastic. It's doing something. And you don't even need to blow anything up to do it. That's lesson one. Stick to that. I got in too deep and look at where I am now."

"A badass," Jasper interrupted, sounding adamant. "A real huntsman. Look at what you can do."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew what I've lost. My friends are dead. My hopes are dead. My dreams are dead. I've got nobody besides Neo, now."

"And she's awesome. She's hot!" Wenge said. "Ow." Bisque hit him.

"Stick to unionizing. At least for now. I'll come by every few days and give you some lessons in fighting. Until you're ready just keep your heads down."

"What if we're never ready," Jasper asked.

"Then you'll still have accomplished something with your unions. That's not bad. It's better than what I can do."

"You can fight though. We can fight. We have semblances," Wenge whined.

"I lost so much to be able to do what I can do. You can barely fight. In a real fight you'd be destroyed. Those Turks would have destroyed you. I'll help you with training and advice. And hell, when you're ready I'll even join you on a mission. But only if you do what I say. Only if you're patient. You all don't have Neo like I do and there are cameras on every corner in this godforsaken city."

"Fine. We'll do it your way, Cloud," Bisque acquiesced.

"I'll be by tomorrow and we'll do some combat training. I'll run you through some stuff I used to run another kid through. I'll show you how to use dust to fight. I'll even do some sparring with you if you think you're up for it." I nodded. I felt Neo's eyes on me. I wasn't sure what she thought of all this. I wasn't sure what she thought about me giving in like this. It wasn't like I was super busy. Now I was just waiting for stones to turn up regarding Cinder and Salem's other agents.

"Thank you Cloud. You're a lifesaver," Jasper said.

I just inclined my head. Neo slammed back the rest of my drink as well, she aptly figured that I wouldn't be taking the rest of it.

I paced out of the bar and to my waiting bike. Neo was waiting just in front of me and not getting on. I straddled the bike and turned to face her.

"I know, I know. We're not getting very much out of it. But we're getting something. And I get to live with myself which is nice."

She hugged me. It came out of nowhere, a sign of real affection for the first time in months. It almost brought me to tears.

"Neo?"

She just shook her head. She eventually released me and looked up at me with pink and brown eyes. I felt her aura, a cruel mellow against my own.

"Been worried about me a little, huh. Sorry. I'm not like Roman though. I'm not all torture and death. I can't do that. I'm not like that. I don't want to be like that. I want to do what I can when I can. And besides they're good contacts. They're union leaders and you like their drinks. Think you can let this one slide?"

She blinked and looked away.

"I wish I knew what you were thinking. I wish that talking to you felt like more than just talking to myself."

She slid on the bike behind me. Her arms once more came right around me. She slid close to me. She was closer than she strictly had to be. It felt… nice.

I embraced the feeling and for the first time, I thought of Neo as a friend. A real friend rather than someone who's goals had happened to have been aligned with mine.

I think… I think she had just been waiting for some sign that I was a person. She was waiting for me to show that I was a human being and not just a monster from Merlot's laboratories. And I'd finally given it to her. So she in turn was showing me her own humanity.

It was a massive comfort and a boon to my soul. I could feel her aura against my own and it didn't feel as cruel anymore. At least not anymore cruel than my own must have felt. It was sort of like if I was running a fever and she was too, and then we touched. She would just feel skin temperature and not feverish. Even though she really was.

My cruelty felt like that. I was cruel and I wondered how long she'd been feeling it against her when we touched. I wondered how long she'd been waiting for me to give her a sign that I wasn't just a murderous animal.

The same way I was looking for more signs that she wasn't just a sadist.

She'd been waiting months, probably. She was tired. I could feel it through her aura. She wanted to be able to trust me past Cinder and I wanted to be able to trust her that far too.

"Crime doesn't fill the void."

She squeezed me.

"You're right. Crime is all that matters."

She hit me.

It was unrelentingly tiring having to constantly second guess my actions where Neo was concerned. I was sure she was tired of it too.

I cried a little and wiped my face.

I revved the bike and drove off in the night.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	59. Proud Ice Queen VII

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Weiss PoV)

I sparred with my sister. She sent her Beowulf at me. It pranced along the generated training ground terrain at me. A bunch of prismatic cubes with glowing blue edges.

It entered a room of my glyphs and I used my pseudo-telekinesis to slam it around against each black glyph until it dissolved.

Winter tried to summon something else but I made my knight little and had it sweep her leg. Knocking her to the floor before she could try anything else.

I let a little giggle escape me.

Winter had never seen it coming. She looked down at my little knight in shock.

Big things weren't always the best application of my semblance. It reminded me a little of Jaune who sometimes held onto his own semblance just for the speed and strength improvements rather than spending it in a flashy display.

I let my little knight dissolve. And Winter rose back to her feet. She whipped her scimitar at me.

I flew at her. Launching myself towards her using a spiraling glyph behind me. I thrust my rapier at her stomach. She leaned to the side. I slashed the narrow tip of Myrtenaster at her stomach where I perceived a hole in her defenses.

She blocked it with her scimitar. It was a wide sweeping gesture that forced me to take a step back. Her weapon unfused and became two, one in each of her hands.

She twirled as she brought the weapon around her body. I ducked the first and met the second. My rapier was slightly longer than her cutlasses. It gave me an edge I didn't squander as I forced her to take a step back using three quick thrusts.

She spun and tried to sweep my lead leg with a low kick. I turned my knee inwards and met the blow at the same time I push-shuffled closer to her and put her off balance with my shoulder. My center of gravity was lower than hers. I capitalized on that with a brutish, inelegant shoulder check. The sort Jaune would have had no qualms about using against me or Yang.

Winter stumbled back and I tore a chunk of her aura away from her with a thin slash of my weapon, cutting through it as she stepped back.

Point me.

"That was unrefined of you." Winter seemed to scold me.

I shrugged. "It's only unrefined if it doesn't work," I returned.

"If I would have known you were going to do something like that I could have capitalized on it."

"But you didn't know. Couldn't have known. That's what made it a good tool. The element of surprise. Besides you over extended with that kick. You lost accordingly because I was able to punish it. If I let you get away with those sorts of attacks without punishing properly, I'll lose."

"That's what made it a good tool," she echoed my words.

"Not good enough," I shot back.

She lowered her weapons at me in response. "Your inelegance will only take you so far. Sloppiness is not the path to victory."

I stayed silent. I'd do what I had to do to win. That was the real path to victory. If Winter was bound up by strings like worrying about how elegant she looked doing what she did, then she would lose. I would emerge victorious because I was willing to do whatever was necessary. Even if that meant being a touch brutish.

My sister spun as she came at me and I met the first scimitar, then I transitioned my blade sideways to meet the second. Then I made the Titania edge vertical but to the side to meet the next.

She meant to keep me in block the entire time while she rained precise blows against my defenses.

It might work too, she had multiple blades to bring to bear and it felt a touch like all I would be able to do is narrowly keep up.

My chance would come, however. If I stayed patient. There. A gap, perhaps an artificial one but still an opportunity I couldn't slip by me. I thrust my blade forward and she caught it on both of hers and attempted to disarm me with a subtle twist of both her weapons at the same time.

I countered by stepping in closer and sliding my weapon against both of hers straight up at her face. She stepped back rather than get hit, and freed my weapon up once more.

I twirled and slashed at her, high, low, high. She blocked each attack in turn.

I stepped back and I waved Myrtenaster. Pinpricks of light emerged from it and raced towards Winter. She shattered the light easily with a motion of her blade.

Our weapons collided and she slid down my weapon towards my wrist. I twisted vertically up and out of the way, using the guard on my weapon to my advantage. Her weapon slid over and past my wrist without colliding with me. One of them did at least. Her off hand weapon slipped under and into the aura of my stomach. She spun with it, slicing upwards as it bit into my aura.

Point her.

It was mostly because she had two weapons to my one but that was no excuse to not concede the point.

"You've improved by wide margins," She said. "And you're only getting better all the time. You're making such sloppy attacks work for you."

"Thank you," I replied. I was doing well enough to match Winter. It was all that real combat experience I had against the agents of Salem that made the difference. Winter was used to fighting opponents who were her inferior. The opposite was true for me.

"That wasn't meant to be a compliment."

"We all slip up sometimes."

She laughed a little and smiled.

"You know I am always here should you need to talk."

"Whatever about?"

"Your Jaune Arc for one. The turncoat."

"I don't view him as a turncoat. Elsewise would Salem not have the relic of knowledge. Why then would she send agents to steal it from us."

"You still haven't accepted it yet."

"And I may never. That's hardly a weakness of me considering the facts that have been presented thus far."

"And yet you have me his description along with that of Salem's other agents."

"In the hopes that you may find him and we can get to the bottom of this mystery. That hardly means I view him as one."

"I too was betrayed once. By a teammate no less. It took a great deal of counseling and therapy for me to come to grips with what happened. And I hardly view that as a weakness. Perhaps you require the same thing. It is something I want you to closely consider."

"I have no intention of talking to a stranger about Jaune. It doesn't feel right."

"Then consider talking to me."

"When you've already written him off? Salem doesn't have the relic. That means something. And I learned a great deal from him. About the world, about fighting, and about myself."

"I learned from my teammate as well. Just know that you aren't alone in this. I know what you're going through."

I didn't think she did. Mostly because I, myself, wasn't sure what I was going through. Between Ruby and Jaune, that is. That wasn't Winter's fault, however. I didn't blame her for it a single iota.

It just meant that what I was going through I needed to lean on Ruby to understand. Of everyone in the world she would get it. She was in the know and unbelievably empathetic besides.

I just nodded to Winter but stayed quiet and readied my weapon for another bout.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I manned a wall of Mantle. Overlooking the frozen tundra. It was ruined by the presence of Grimm.

There had been a mine collapse and that was leading to a miner's strike across Mantle. That much negativity was drawing the Grimm in spades.

I summoned my Knight outside the wall and directed it with a wave of my hand. It met one of the elephantine Grimm and stopped it in its barrelling tracks. They wrestled for an impossible moment before my great knight flipped it over onto its back.

It let out a trumpeting call and the enormous sword was brought down through its chest, it's exposed underbelly a great weakness of black flesh rather than the white plate armor that covered it's back and sides.

I felt the elephant get added to my collection of possible summons. Another monster I had slain, if only indirectly.

I could feel the rage of the protestors behind me. I hoped that my father would compromise and meet with the strike leaders soon. I knew him and he only responded to shows of force. The sort of collective action I'd seen in the streets which bordered on riotous had to be the sort that he'd now to.

Surely.

Despite that I was unconvinced. My father always had an angle and he'd broken up strikes before. Bribing leaders, making threats, calling in the military, or making brief concessions before returning to the previous status quo. And here I was defending him incidentally.

I hated that. I reminded myself that it was Mantle and Atlas I was defending from these Grimm. Not my father and his shady business practices.

The riots felt hot at the hairs on my neck as I directed my silvery specter to wrestle with another Goliath. It felt like their breath was right behind me. I knew that that wasn't the case. Kilometers separated me and the pocket lines.

Things may not work out how I thought. Maybe my father would really give in. But there was a build up in supply of dust. My father had been hurting for people to sell it all to. Surely he had a great deal of the energy propellant in the warehouses around both cities.

That meant he could afford to wait and eventually the fire in the belly of the strikers would die down. Then he could return to business as he had before.

The oversupply caused by the embargo would be beneficial to him in this case. I wasn't sure how much of that my teammates understood. I had been raised with proud conversations about strike breaking at the dinner table.

I cast a half dozen points of explosive light at a Chimera that hovered near the walls and it fell down. I rotated the barrel of my sword and I used dust, air and water in combination, and called up an ice storm from a glyph which pierced it's hide and sent it to withering ash.

The storm I called bowled into many smaller Grimm as well. It scattered a dozen Beowulfs into charred flakes.

I swept Myrtenaster over my head and called another great glyph to life. I rotated the barrel of my weapon again and the blade glowed yellow. A dozen lightning bolts jumped from the corners of the glyph into a group of Gryphons making their way towards the wall.

Much like the monsters before them they were dissolved by the force behind the electricity. With dust to augment my spells I may well be the strongest member of team RWBY. I was no slouch with the power of nature behind me.

It made me wonder what I would be like with the power of a maiden behind me. Would it be like I had a buffet of dust behind me at all times or would the power be entirely divorced from my semblance? Either seemed possible. Or it might be something completely different from both those options. I would have no idea until I became a maiden. If I became a maiden, that is. There was always the chance that the agents of Salem would win again. There was the possibility that I could die the next time we clashed, as Ren and Nora had.

Speaking of it was possible the agents of Salem were behind this strike. Sure it might benefit the workers, but not if we couldn't hold the wall against the Grimm.

I summoned my knight in mid-air in a spiraling glyph next to a Chimera in flight and my silver warrior brought it's sword down on the Grimm mid-flight and divided it in two.

I would hold this wall. It was my duty to defend the people from the Grimm that might come this way. That was all I should be worrying about for now. I was sure of that but I couldn't help but let my thoughts wander. I was backed by a regiment of robotic troopers and Atlas security soldiers.

They lined up and with short controlled bursts they brought Grimm down which were beneath my attention. Together we moved and slowly cleared this section of tundra of all black and white threats.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was watching over a patrol of machines. United we were overlooking the protests at the mines. They'd put me in charge of a batch of machines and I was to make sure that no fighting broke out between police and protestors.

Under no circumstances was I to fire upon the crowd, however. I understood how important it was. I was here to hold the line and remind people that the Atlas Military was watching.

Protestors held signs like _Dust Lung Laws Now_, and _Give the Scabs Nothing_, and even _Save Our Pit. _

I stood opposite a line of people fifty persons thick. It was spilling out onto a wide asphalt street. It had brick buildings on either side and the people were marching straight down the road and shouting. "No dust! Or bust!"

There was a little faunus girl with bear ears right out in front and screaming. She couldn't have been older than nine. Was that how old Blake had been when she started out? It was a chilling thought. As emotionally abusive as my parents had been I had been safe and sound in Schnee Manor.

Some of our family had been disappearing but that had been an abstract worry to a little girl who was being physically and emotionally abused by her parents. Even if she hadn't known it at the time. And I hadn't known it at the time.

I ordered the machines to line up against the walls of the street along the stores that made up either side. It was better to be out of the way of the marching crowd.

Someone set a trash can on fire and threw I watched in horror as it was thrown through an SDC storefront. Glass shattered everywhere and the people cheered as the building started to burn from the inside out. A group of machines set about moving people back from the burning building and putting out the fires.

I say the man. A young boy really in a purple hoodie and black jeans.

"Arrest him," I ordered the machines. The boy dispersed through the crowd and the boy shuffled into it and vanished amongst the protestors. "Damn it."

I jumped high and landed on a glyph. I looked out into the crowd and saw the purple shape shuffling into the throng of people.

I blitzed forward on a wave of glyphs and landed on top of him. I held him down as people shouted around me. They booed me. I was surrounded by a mob of people set against me and firmly on the boy's side. They probably would be even more against me if they knew I was a Schnee. Someone threw a rock at me and it missed. It was the little girl with bear ears. I looked away. The machines gathered around me and took the young man into custody.

He was put into handcuffs and carried away by the blank faced robots. I watched them go and was returned to being surrounded and alone by a mob which disliked me and might hate me if they knew a little more. My glyphs weren't exactly subtle. But they were fast. I was booed as I moved about.

"Dirty Schnee."

"Money grubbing Schnee!"

"Schnee!"

I caught the words out of the mob. I was recognized, at least a little.

I bounced out on a set of glyphs to the rooftops and watched the crowd move.

The robots put out the fire and kept the swarm of people back away from the SDC storefront.

"Beat the Schnee with glee!" They shouted with fists moving forward.

I could really only watch from my vantage point and wait and see if they needed more interference.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	60. No Hard Feelings I

**All these reviews and discussion has me riled up.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I kicked my feet up and I watched the striper dance before me. I took a long draw on my packed pipe and since Aurum was doing it, I tossed some bills on the striper. Why the fuck not?

She bent down low in front of me in pretty white bottoms. She had pretty blue eyes besides and a frilly matching white top. She danced in front of Aurum and I and he poured me a drink.

I took it from him with grace and sipped on the alcohol slowly, though faster than I might normally.

"No word on your mustached man," he told me. "I've been keeping an ear to the ground about it and I haven't heard a thing. If only you'd seen his weapon, man. Then we'd have something to go off of."

I grunted and nodded. I took a swig of drink.

"Can I get something sugary up here for Neo? Girliest, sugariest drink you have in the house. All the better if it has ice-cream in it."

Neo hit me in the side but smiled. She didn't disagree.

"One fuzzy navel coming right up," Aurum called out to a wait staff member who was passing by on the second floor of his club. The man nodded and took the order. Like all of Aurum's waitstaff the man was good looking. Stand out in a crowd good looking. Almost hunter angel-like good looking.

Aurum owed me. For killing Tyrian. Neither of us said it but mass murderers are bad for business, they brought the wrong kind of attention. He was paying me off with drink and women a little. Or trying to. I was hard to buy off with such trivial things. I wasn't saying I couldn't be bought with it. That seemed like a bit much. And the dancer was beautiful with those baby-blues. She reminded me of my first crush a little.

I was good for his business because I was so dangerous. Keeping me happy was good for his business because I was so dangerous. It was a razor that might cut one of us but for now he was happy and I was happy so why not drink with one another and party while I waited for my information to come in?

I'd already paid for it by murdering some of his enemies and he'd probably tell me about it as soon as he knew something because Cinder Fall was another murderer who wasn't interested in the drug game or playing the game like I was.

"Cloud, I still don't have any news on the others you asked me to watch out for. Cinder Fall or Hazel Rainart."

"Cinder Fall is probably not her real name anyways. Plus she could be working through some other associates. Emerald Sustrai or Mercury Black."

"I'll keep an eye out for them all the same. Did you learn what you needed from Avalanche?"

"I did. The General's project wasn't so secret after all. Hard to keep everyone in on something that large quiet."

"Fair enough." He said without asking me more about the project. He probably didn't care to know the details so long as it didn't affect his business ventures. "Come with me. Try some hyper," he said. He was trying to buy me off with drugs as well. He'd hooked me up with more greens. I'd paid a little but it was discounted.

"I don't know that I should. I already have some psychosis. That's what the weed is for."

"Oh it's not so bad. Just an intense rush."

"Isn't it a pro-psychotic?"

"Maybe a little. I'm not a doctor. Try some, you'll be fine."

I shrugged my shoulders. Fuck it. Why not? What was the worst thing that could happen if I did? I'd become a murderer? That ship had sailed, thanks. I'd become involved in the drug game? A bit late, thank you. An alien goddess would seize control over my mind, again? Maybe. But I couldn't live in fear of Mother all the time.

He cut out a line of the stuff and showed me how to inhale it.

I did. I pulled deeply into my nostrils and up into my sinuses.

I leaned back as the powder filled my nose and dripped down my esophagus a little. It hit my brain fast and hard. Aurum had been right. It was intense.

And it was a rush. I was zooming. My brain strummed like it was endlessly hitting a high wiry note on an electric guitar with an amplifier. Volts coursed through my veins in my skull. My arteries seemed to be full of odd amps. Like I'd been shot in the head by some kind of electric gun.

Bugs wiggled their way around behind my eyes more intensely than ever. I just didn't care as I leaned back into my seat once more.

I swear I could almost hear mother's voice over the din of the music in The Den. But only just. It wasn't bad now that I thought about it. Just a dull whisper. Just some bitch talking to me like she owned me.

What else was new?

My leg was moving restlessly. I felt like I was about to jump out of my skin.

Neo sucked on a long blue bendy straw next to me and on impulse I nearly took it from her hands and threw it across the room. I reigned myself in, though. There was no reason to do that. I just needed to sit back and relax… relax… relax.

My brain seemed stuck in a loop and I repeated that over and over in my head like a mantra. Relax… relax… relax… why wasn't I relaxing?

I drank and smoked some more. I drank like I was thirsty and I smoked like my personal stash wasn't running a bit low before I'd bought some more.

It felt damn good to over indulge and crossfade myself as thoroughly as I could.

"Well you're handling it well," Aurum said. "That was your first time, no?"

"It is. Was. Whatever." My heart beat fast and my leg bounced. "I want to kill something. Is that normal?"

"Depends. For you, probably. You're a killer."

I nodded. That made sense. It was hot in all my clothes so I stripped my armor off and set it beside Neo and I on one of the long couches.

I sat back and watched the dancer before me work as my vision came in and out. Blackening and refocusing.

It beat a steady tide in rhythm with my heart.

"Though there is one man in town who I thought you should know about." Aurum told me. I wasn't sure how he was staying so fucking calm.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Name's Adam Taurus. Old White Fang member. He's another killer. Caused the SDC problems for years."

"Want me to kill him?" My voice was much more calm than I felt. My heart was racing. My head throbbed in time with the music in a pleasant way. My eyes felt like they were going to pop from their sockets.

"Maybe. He's the sort who is also bad for my business. Idealistic. Unwilling to compromise. And he paints the town red wherever he goes."

"I could go for a fight right about now. Not sure it's a good idea. Neo, your thoughts?" She shrugged at me, then she shook her head to the negative. Thank you for that contribution Neo. Enlightening. "We'll probably end up passing. I'll kill him for a favor if you change your mind."

"I just might take you up on that." Aurum took a long swig of his favorite amber drink.

I followed suit and found my glass empty. It was quickly refilled by a gorgeous young redhead with a staff shirt on and long legs.

I stared after her for a long time.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I came down with a headache. "Neo would you get me a glass of water." I bemoaned from my bed in our shared motel space.

She obliged. Fetching the water, then she poured it right on my face.

"Ack! Neo. Gods damn it." I was awake now if nothing else.

I sat up in the bed. I spat water from my mouth. I stood up and got my own drink of water. Neo could be so unreliable.

"You're such a bitch, Neo." I told her over my throbbing headache. I palmed my forehead and over one of my eyes.

"Why I oughta," I said it like a complete sentence with no real heat.

She blinked at me innocently and her eyes switched colors. She fooled nobody with that.

She had cigarette in her mouth, the smoke from it filling our shady apartment.

I wasn't sure which drug that I had partaken in the night before that was killing me. It could have just been alcohol. It could have been the hyper. Either way I was thirsty enough that when I downed a glass, I followed it up with two more.

I could scarcely remember the night prior. Other than a soft warm feeling that followed my memories about it. Too much drink. Too much weed. Too much everything. I probably wasn't going to try hyper again. I crossfaded myself ultra hardcore. I rubbed my eyes firmly.

I looked over at Neo and really took her in for the first time. She wasn't wearing a shirt and was just in her brassiere and her full pants. I took her milky cleavage in for a moment before I looked down at myself. I was shirtless and wearing boxers.

"Did we…?"

She rolled her eyes at me. A smirk on her face as she did. She reached over with her cigarette and put it out on my chest, nice and slow. She grinned at my pain. Her breathing rushed a little as I hissed.

"Neo, I'm damn well serious." I tasted my own lips with my tongue a little. It tasted funny. Was that someone else's lipstick or was my mouth just fucked from drinks and hyper.

"Did we or didn't we?" She just turned and began putting the rest of her clothes on. She spun and twisted a curtain into place between our two sections of room and beds as she clothed herself.

"Neo!"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

She refused to answer me. In any capacity. She just left it as it was which was well within her personality but was more than a little obnoxious from my end. Fuck her.

Sex with a demoness or not, and I was trying hard not to think about that, I still had other business to attend to. Like heading over to Avalanche headquarters.

We rolled up on the bar with Neo's arms wrapped around my waist. She held herself nice and tight to me for the ride. The absolute… I mean honestly...

"Neo you little devil," I said to her, looking forward. Neither of us were wearing helmets. Little point when we were both hunters.

It was on me for getting black out drunk and giving her the opportunity to hold it over me. Forever.

Plus if I really did do it I had a lot to feel guilty about. Wherever little Ruby Rose was she wasn't enjoying another's company like that. She was probably shattered to pieces.

She was probably in a lot of pain over me. I had caused that. I didn't deserve to cause her pain. But I had anyway. It made my chest ache to think about. It made me feel worthless. More worthless, that is.

Guilt rose up in my mouth like bile and it whipped at me like a switch. I didn't much like to think about that. But by all accounts we were broken up. I had no idea when I would even see her again. We were shattered, me and her. So what did it matter if I did have sex with Neo? Evidently it mattered to me. I didn't want it to have happened. I regretted that I didn't know.

It meant that Yang was right about me. One way or another her older sister instincts had been on point. She'd been right to keep me away. For more than one reason, probably. That made me feel like shit.

It also meant disappointing Weiss. I had long wanted her approval for one reason or another. That hadn't exactly changed. Her affectionate dawn smile with her hair down reflected in my mind for a moment before I imagined her looking at me with a cold hard apathy like she had so many times before. And I grimaced at so many memories of asking her out.

Besides, I should feel guilty about what I had done to Ruby. She was probably off saving lives while I was taking them like some common criminal or something. We couldn't be more different. She was an angel and I was a demon.

And I wasn't about to talk to Neo about that. Or have a one way conversation with her, at any rate. As much as you could have a conversation with Neo. About all of this.

I walked up to the bar and opened the door with a jingle of bells. I tried to roll my shoulders and undo a kink in them I'd worked into the muscle the night before.

Jasper was up behind the bar, washing the counter down with a cloth.

"Oh, Cloud… you're back!"

"I promised to train you guys a little. Where's the others?"

"They're out for a minute. There's a big player in town. Adam Taurus. He's causing problems for the union and with the miner leaders like Dyne."

"Dyne?"

"Just Dyne. No last name. He's one of the old miner leaders. Been around since the old days of the White Fang. He was always outspoken about union action over taking up arms. Or at least he used to be. He hates the Schnee name, now. His daughter was injured in a mining accident recently. Bisque is worried about what he and Adam will get up to."

"This is the second time I'm hearing about Taurus."

"He's problems. At least for us. They're working up strikes, which is a good thing. But they also have the potential to get violent. People could get hurt. Bisque is trying to stop things from escalating."

"Yeah but you guys are fairly militant. Shouldn't you be on board with Taurus?"

"We always plan our operations around not killing people. People always die with Taurus on the job. Always. He's got a red streak a mile wide."

"Guess that's why Aurum might want me to kill him. Not willing to play ball. And Wenge?"

"Leading a strike. Avalanche needs to stay involved in all of this if we want to be a player at all. I'm just holding down the fort because somebody needs to be looking after the bar. People might come by and have questions for us about the strike. We have to stay on top of information."

"Need me to kill Taurus?" I asked.

"You think you can pull it off? I know you're good but Taurus is also a badass. He's got some real power," Jasper said.

I thought of Tyrian. He was one of Salem's guard and I'd killed him. He was probably about as dangerous as hunters came. Barring people like Cinder who were also maidens and had some extra kick.

"I might be able to manage it. Difficult to say before I lay into him but it's a possibility. Aurum talked to me about maybe taking him down. I remember that from last night at least."

"What happened last night?" Jasper asked. She leaned forward on one hand which rested with her elbow on the counter.

"Drank too much. That's all. Nothing else happened."

Neo nudged me. I looked way down at her short ass. A calm smirk was on her face looking back up at me. One end of her lips turned up.

Shut up, Neo.

"You up for some training?" I asked.

"I can't." Jasper sighed. "I've got to man the fort. Think you can come by again later? Wenge should be by then too."

I nodded.

"Probably. I'm just waiting for some information to come in. Not much else is going on in my life at the moment. Running favors for my 'friends.' That sort of thing."

The door jingled again. I turned to look. It was the crossbow girl from before.

"Oh. It's you," she said with some derision at me. I could live with that. At least I was being remembered.

"Me." I agreed. Like it was a curse. Which it was in a lot of respects. Boy was it.

"I'm not here to talk to you." She looked away towards Jasper. "I'm here to talk about the strikes. You kicked this off by bombing the mind and shutting work down."

"Maybe we did, as far as Avalanche is concerned the strikes are a good thing."

"Not this close to the elections. It's too much unrest."

"You're just upset because the strike leaders aren't paying homage to Robyn. They don't care about another election cycle where nothing gets done to improve their conditions. Especially when Schnee himself is running."

"This isn't about that. If martial law gets declared it will push elections back."

"I know you're concerned about Hill's chances of winning. Maybe you should be out leading them instead of hiding away or whatever the Happy Huntresses are doing," Jasper told her. Crossing her arms over her chest.

"The Happy Huntresses are always fighting for Mantle."

"Yeah, on your time table. Not on Mantle's. The people want change and they want it now."

"You stirred them up. Your bombing caused this. The people were content to wait!"

"We didn't cause the strikes. You're looking for Dyne and Adam Taurus."

"Adam Taurus?!" Fiona was incredulous.

"Oh you haven't heard? Maybe the Happy Huntresses are out of touch."

"Don't be petulant just because I wouldn't help you with your bombing. Look at what you've done! Now Adam Taurus is involved."

"If you're scared of him-" Jasper began she was cut off.

"Only a fool wouldn't be," Fiona said. "Call off the strikes."

"No can do," Jasper said. "Wouldn't want to even if we could. Take it up with Dyne."

"Dyne is unreachable. He wants revenge against the SDC at all costs. We're hoping Avalanche is more agreeable. You have a network. You can shut this down."

"I told you we want the strikes." Jasper leaned forward into her words. "Live with them. Or don't. Better yet."

"All this because I wouldn't bomb them with you! It was a bad idea. Look at all the unrest it's causing. Ironwood might declare martial law. Who will win then? Not the miners. The military always backs the SDC to break up the strikes. People get hurt every time. Please. This has to stop. Only through elections will real change get affected."

"I disagree. I think we can get real change done by collective action."

"It never works. It'll end with them opening fire on the mob. It always ends that way. Dust mining is too important to stay shut down. The military will back the SDC because they need the dust."

"There's an oversupply with the embargo. There's enough dust to last months. The strike won't last that long anyways. Old man Schnee will have to give in and improve the working conditions."

"He never does. And the negativity too, it's drawing the Grimm."

"So what? That's exactly why they can't open fire on a crowd of protestors." Jasper refuted.

"So what? So what?" Fiona repeated sounding shocked. "So people will die. And what about people who want more than improved conditions? What about the levelers who want wealth and property abolished? You're giving them a platform."

"What if the levelers are right? What if wealth and property should be abolished. Look at the pain it causes."

"It's the foundation of our society with the Grimm at the gates!"

"Cloud, what do you think, are the Grimm that big of a threat? We've got the largest military in the world for a reason."

I had been watching the two with rapt attention as they ran down Mantle politics. To be honest I was learning a lot. Particularly about these levelers. They sounded a lot like the Anti-capitalists of back home in Vale.

"I think the Grimm are always a threat. More than the layman knows," I murmured.

"See, even the murderer agrees. All this negativity can't go on. If you don't shut down the strikes, then the military will."

Fiona turned at the door.

"Please," she begged. "Shut it down."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	61. No Hard Feelings II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Well, are you?" I asked Jasper.

"Am I what?" She returned from her place by the counter.

"Going to shut down the strikes. She made some pretty good points about the Grimm," I said. I leaned on one of the tables, my massive sword handle extending over my head.

"No… I told you we aren't even in charge of the strikes really. It's a bit of an avalanche that's carrying us along. And if we don't get on board we'll be left behind," Jasper returned. "I'm not saying that she didn't have any good points. And maybe the only way to get real change going is with the elections. And Robyn Hill is basically a shoe in over Schnee. Especially down here in Mantle. Money can only buy you so much. Might be for the best if things were to die down."

"But you're not sure," I affirmed.

"How can I be? Nobody's sure. It's the human-faunus condition. The Happy Huntresses are about defending Mantle, though. They've been at it for a while and they've done some real good. Maybe they're right about this too. I certainly don't think the military will shoot on the crowd but if they do it would be bad."

"The Happy Huntresses don't seem to like me which is a point in their favor."

"Oh pssh. None of that. You do fine."

"So, I'll just come by again later?" I asked.

"Yeah, really sorry about this, cutie." She winked. Her fox tail swished around in the air behind her in a brownish-red and white flare.

I ignored that last bit.

Neo tugged on my sleeve from her position by my side.

"What?" I asked her. "Want one of their drinks?"

She held up a finger to her lips as though deep in thought. Then shook her head.

"Then I have no idea what you want." I turned back towards Jasper. "We'll be back later. I'm going to go scope out this Adam Taurus and the protests. I might end up having to kill him after all."

"If you say so. See you later tonight."

"Yeah well no promises, especially if I end up in a fight."

Neo and I strode out and mounted my motorcycle. "You are being a needy bitch today, Neo. What's up with you?"

She shoved a finger in out of a rounded hole made of her other fingers. "Not happening. Didn't happen. I would remember something like that."

I was like seventy-five percent sure. Maybe a hard seventy.

She shrugged at me, somehow making the gesture teasing. An 'if you say so.'

"I do say so." And I did. It did not happen.

No matter what she herself implied. I would remember. I would know. Sure the night before was little more than golden blurs. And sure I somehow ended back up at the motel with all my armor and gear.

Anything could have happened after I really started drinking and the morning when I woke up. Anything but that, that is. The warm memories I felt were probably from The Den not from you know… sex… with Neo.

I rubbed a hand over my face hard.

"Neo you're fucking killing me. You know that, right?"

She grinned and nodded.

"Yeah well even if it happened once it's never ever happening again. I'm too fucked up to be doing that level of drugs again, that was a mistake. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm also too fucked up to be having sex with you."

I looked down at her as she frowned and slapped me on the arm.

"No points against you. You're drop dead gorgeous. But, well, tough shit," I returned. "For me and for you."

I revved up my motorcycle. Neo straddled behind me and flickered into a disguise for while we were driving. She was wanted, more so than my own form. No reason to give some patrol-man a reason to pull us over and start calling for backup.

And she couldn't exactly cover every camera we came across while driving. There were too many on the main roads and we went by too fast. So this little disguise helped.

She was still gorgeous in her double, with bright green eyes and dark black hair, just as long as it was when she was in her normal form which was to say waist length. Neo had that otherworldly angel-esque appearance some hunters got after a few years with aura.

It was a cure all to wrinkles and blemishes and left the user looking out of this world. Neo was no exception with her tight stomach being exposed and her muscular, relatively long smooth legs in those heels propping up her butt. Her short stature didn't detract from her beauty.

Huntresses, man. They were just like that. Like they came from another planet. Maybe I was a bit like that too, though. If I could be so arrogant. I'd had aura most of my natural life. Tall, blonde, and huntsman, I recalled a conversation in GaiLong I had with an old man about it. He told me not to be dense. I attracted more than my fair share of looks. More than my fair share.

Ruby had been like that. Beautiful like a little angel. Her hair and eyes stood out unnaturally even amongst huntresses. Yang, of course, was staggeringly gorgeous with her blonde mane of hair and lilac eyes. Weiss had a sort of pristine crystalline look to her that had drawn me to her immediately. Like she was multifaceted. Like a cut diamond. Blake had that bookish appeal but translated over to the huntress side of things it made her stand out in any crowd.

Pyrrha… well it went without saying with Pyrrha. Her emerald eyes and bright red hair flashed behind my eyelids every time I closed my own. She haunted me, Pyrrha Nikos did.

Even Jasper had started to have a bit of that. Stomach and face like a supermodel and long legs to boot.

Huntresses, man. Ain't nothing like 'em. Aura was a hell of a drug. It turned people into angelic beings.

But Neo was no exception. When I first arrived at Beacon I thought I'd have been lucky to have sex with someone as gorgeous as she was.

Now the thought only filled me with a slight sense of dread. A mix of betrayal and hurt welled up from deep inside me. Even though I had no right to feel that way. My feelings about it weren't valid. Not then when I'd first arrived at Beacon, all my feelings from then were fake. And not now when I was cruising around like a monster.

I rolled up on where the miners were picketing. It was near the open pit mine I'd been at for the bombing. They'd lined up around it, eight or ten people deep. They were armed with protest signs and little else from what I could see. They had no weapons.

Could Ironwood really open up and fire on a crowd like this? Would that really solve the negativity problem or just make it worse? I could see it now, a swarm of Atlesian Robots mercilessly breaking up the protest with sleek assault rifles.

I thought it would make things worse. For sure, for sure but my opinion hardly counted for squat, did it.

By the crowd there were police officers lined up around the perimeter. They probably had standing orders to leave the crowd be but break up any fighting. They looked nervous. As they should before a mob like this.

The people were baying for change.

From the protestors' signs they were demanding safe improvements to their work and higher wages. Nothing crazy, at least in my opinion. In my estimation they would get it. They deserved it. These people weren't hunters. They hadn't signed up for danger. They wanted their working environments to be safe so they could go home and see their families every day.

There was nothing crazy about that. Nothing insane. These people already should have had that. Mining should be one of the safest occupations. It could be, done right. It didn't have to be a dangerous, well, a minefield. Save that for the hunters.

I guess the collapse of this mine, artificial or not, had been a bit of a breaking point for the people. I trolled around the crowd for a few hours. Traffic was ground to a halt in places as the protest spilled out onto the streets, blocking vital arteries of city flow beyond the capacity to reroute. It backed up traffic for miles and miles. It was unbelievable.

It was a mess. I could confess that. But it seemed like an easy enough decision at the top level. Capitulate, and nobody would have to get hurt. Of course if old man Schnee cared more about people than the profits his company could pull in, then people wouldn't be protesting, would they.

It was hard to see him winning the election to the council with open picketing happening against his company but Atlas got a vote too and they were separated from all this. One of the benefits of keeping the people of Atlas and Mantle segregated.

It was gross but effective. Keep the different stakeholders in different places and there would be no need to capitulate. I didn't had the disgust I felt and let it roll out onto my expression. Jacque Schnee could keep his company rolling the way it had been and become a council chairman. He could have his cake and eat it too.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I never found Adam Taurus.

It wasn't exactly a point of shame for me either. The entire Atlas military couldn't find me but then again I was driving around in broad daylight with my own illusionist. It made me wonder if Adam had his own illusionist. Like maybe someone like Emerald Sustrai. She was an illusionist too.

What I managed to do instead was drive around and observe the absurdity of the crowd for a few hours. If I needed to find Adam Taurus bad enough I would use Aurum. Not drive around lost.

Still it was good for me to see the crowd and feel their negativity for myself. It was easy to talk about it and have it all get lost on you what ten thousand angry people really felt like against your skin. Or aura. Whichever. They felt mostly the same to me. Maybe it was my short lifespan with a relatively long period of having my aura activated but I could hardly tell a difference.

I could feel Neo riding behind me with her cruel cold. I could also feel the crowd. Blazingly hot. Burning me up. Throngs of people fired up over a common reason. A common goal.

I wasn't much of an empath but even I could feel the negativity. Ren had always been better than me at that. Ruby had been too. What did it say that I was able to feel the negative emotions rolling off the crowd like a tsunami?

It meant that even a layman could probably notice it and pick up on it. The walls of Mantle had probably been under twenty-four seven assault by the Grimm. Meanwhile Atlas rested above, safe and sound. Connected to Mantle only by shallow guide wires for the gondolas and trams.

A shallow spider web that connected the two cities. Never crossing, never overlapping, but allowing the transference of people and ideas.

They probably felt none of this rage. Atlas was an island in a sea of negativity and Grimm. Albeit a floating island but an island nonetheless.

How could two places so close together feel so disparate? Was this how the segregation had remained mostly in place for so long? How long has things been like this with Mantle's red hot rage and Atlas's grey cold apathy?

It unsettled me, the stark difference between the two.

I shifted on the bike and Neo scooted down closer to me. She kept a single arm around me and under my plate.

"Well Neo, what do you think? Think we should cut this off and kill Adam Taurus?"

Was I just hunting for an reason for me to kill someone. Maybe. Salem was driving me mad. I at least had that as an excuse.

"Of course killing Adam Taurus won't end this. We'd need to get that Dyne guy. We started this, though. We're responsible for it, to one degree or another."

"I feel bad. Last night I was getting wasted in The Den and this shit was happening down here. You couldn't even tell how bad things are from up in Atlas. All the people down here, if you even care to look and see them, just look like ants."

I rolled back up on Seventh Heaven in the evening. There were more cars parked outside than normal. I marched up to the place and walked inside with a jingle of the bells.

It was relatively crowded. It had all the members of Avalanche inside, looking as they did before with their red bandannas. Then it had another man in a white mask, red hair and a long katana. He had the horns of a bull on him.

There were two more guys inside. A taller white skinned gentleman with a white shirt, green trousers and a green vest with red trimmings. He had only one arm. The other was cut off at the elbow with red bandages around the end. He had a wiry tail like that of some kind of big cat.

Another man was in there but his opposite arm, his right, was cut off at the elbow. He was taller, taller than me, with black skin and black hair. He had thick brown boots and a brown vest with a green trousers and a darker brown under shirt. He had a thick bushy bear tail.

Everyone turned to look at Neo and I as we walked in. We were the only humans in the room.

"Cloud…" Bisque said in greeting.

"What're these humans doing here?" The man in the white mask gestured his blade forward at his hip towards me.

"We invited them, before we knew this meeting was going to happen," Jasper said.

The man with the katana growled at me. I stared him right down back. It would be inaccurate to say nothing scared me, but not this asshole.

"He worked with us. He's a mercenary who helped us blow up the mine. He fought the Turks. He's cool," Wenge said.

"You did that?" The taller dark skinned man asked.

"I did." I nodded.

"Why would a human do that?" The masked man asked.

"Money. Information. Take your pick," I shot back.

"I don't like your attitude. And I do recognize her. She's Neapolitan. She used to work for Roman Torchwick."

"She works for me now. You got a problem with that then we can take it outside."

He growled and stepped forward towards me. A hand held him back and his chest from the man without his left arm.

"I'm Dyne. This is Barrett," Dyne introduced. "We could use the help of a skilled merc. The picketing is losing steam already. We need to set a fire under Schnee's ass."

"Avalanche was telling us about another operation, one to sink an SDC freighter," the man without his right arm continued, Barrett was his name. "Make them beg for the miners back."

"They told me about it. I recommended that they wait," I said. "I take it you gentlemen want the operation to go ahead?"

"That's right." The man with sword said. "If you think you're up for it. If they think a human like you can be trusted."

"Avalanche has one of my retainers." I pulled my pipe out and lit it. I made myself look comfortable.

"Oh Cloud can I get you anything to drink?" Jasper asked.

I looked down at Neo. She nodded. "Just one of those house specials for Neo. I'm good." I'd had enough to drink the night prior. "And who's this?" I nodded at the man with the Katana. "The rest of you were polite enough to introduce yourselves."

"I'm Adam Taurus."

"Ah," I said. "The man on everybody's mind. I might get paid to kill you tomorrow."

He grabbed his sword but he didn't draw it.

"Is that a threat."

"A little." I exhaled smoke in his direction. "It's the truth. Think you can take me, Taurus? Wanna dance?"

"I, for one, like you, Cloud. What was your last name?" Dyne asked.

"Strife. It's Cloud Strife."

"Well I think we just may be able to work together. Avalanche has your fee? You'll do this op for us?"

I smoked and nodded. I looked over Dyne's head at Avalanche. They were giving me pleading and grateful looks.

"Should be cinch," I said. "We can discuss my payment later."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	62. Corel I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"You owe me big," I said to Bisque. We were watching Wenge and Jasper sprint back and forth across a small courtyard behind the bar.

"I hear you, I hear you," Bisque said. "We were sort of roped into more than we could chew."

"Between the strikes and whatever those leaders want?" I asked.

"People started looking at us like we were supposed to have answers. That's how the old White Fang got started around here. Just as union leaders and such. Now that they've been discredited and with our network people were looking at us to pick up the slack."

"So you got dragged into this, you're being strong armed into doing this operation before y'all are ready."

"By those old miner leaders. Dyne and Barret. Dyne's been around for a long ass time. Barrett's newer but they're both close. Barret is backing Dyne. Which means we need to play ball too."

"Which is why you owe me. Big time. I want information. As soon as you have it. I have a list of names I'll want you to keep an ear to the ground about and if you want me to kill Taurus it'll cost you extra," I informed him. Never let it be said I was purely altruistic. I saw my edge over him and I was taking it.

He slapped a hand over his face. "No, no. Don't kill him. At least not yet if you can help it. And I'll take your list of names."

"That's just the start. I don't want Lien. I'll want any other information that you can give me when and if I ask for it. A blank check." I leaned against the wall of the bar beside Neo with my arms crossed.

"Fine. Fair enough." He rubbed his forehead hard. "We do owe you. Thanks Cloud."

"And you'll want to upgrade the fucking squirt gun you've got."

"What's wrong with my pistol?" He asked.

"It's a fucking .22."

"Hey now. It's a .30."

"Still. Those sometimes don't stop regular people. You'll want something with more kick to it. I can pick up something better from Aurum. Lasers, higher caliber, or even something magnetic accelerated so it still has as much kinetic energy as a .44 or .45. Hell, you should probably talk .50 cal if you want to stop anybody with aura and training."

"So I should go big or go home?" He asked.

"More like go big or die, bro," I said. "I knew this fifteen year old who used a .50 caliber sniper rifle. If you're really attached to something small I could get you a submachine gun."

"I'll think about it," he said.

"Think fast," I shot back.

We watched Jasper and Wenge pant and sprint in their suicides for a hard moment.

"You going to -" I was interrupted by the jingle of bells as the bar's door opened.

I was going to ask if he was going to join Jasper and Wenge who were working hard. Avalanche all had aura but having aura didn't make you good, I'd been living proof of that. Even having a semblance didn't make you good. Only training or else real combat could help with that.

I peaked around the corner and through a screen door. It was Robyn Hill in the bar. I recognized her face from the posters of her all over both towns. She had pale hair (not as snow white as Weiss's) and purple eyes, not quite as vibrant as Yangs, but she was still beautiful. Aura-hunter-beautiful.

"Bar's closed," Bisque told her. I heard through the back door entrance and window.

"Oh don't be like that. I just want to talk about the General's project."

"Not this time. You shot us down, remember. Or your agent did, Fiona was it," Bisque returned. He didn't look amused.

"I have some Lien I could offer you." Robyn said and she leaned against the counter. Her face on one palm. "Sorry we weren't about the destruction of Schnee property. But look where that got you."

"The value of money is plummeting for me recently," Bisque said dryly.

I snorted. Money only talked so loudly to hunters like Neo and I. I was willing to bet she had more millions stashed away than the ones we took from Don Corneo. But that wasn't how you kept Neo entertained. Well, drugs and alcohol helped but what she really wanted was somebody to fuck with. Even if that somebody was only me and it had to do with a night I'd gotten black-out drunk on. She was milking that for all it was worth.

"How much will that information cost me?" Hill asked. "What can I do to make you call off these strikes? Come on, work with me here. I'm listening now."

"A few hundred thousand. And we're not in charge of the strikes."

She winced at the price but sighed in a way that didn't make it seem undoable. "I'll see about getting you your money. And that's not the way I hear it. These are your strikes now."

"They're not. You're looking for Dyne or Barret."

"Dyne is unreconcilable. He's on the warpath. He wants the strikes to never end just so long as Schnee suffers. He's unreachable. And Barret is angry. He'll stay that way for the foreseeable future. You're not, work with me here," she said again. "What will it cost? I'm willing to make all kinds of campaign promises. I'll keep them too. I'm a woman of my word. You want dust lung laws? I want them too. Why don't we start negotiating there? The strikes have to end somewhere."

"We want increased safety standards. And we want an increase in minimum wage. Wages haven't kept up with inflation so the current wage is unlivable."

"Done. Please. I can't get elected under this kind of unrest. Just join my voting block, getting your people to join my block will solve both of our problems."

"I'm not sure I can do that. There's more on the way."

"What else is on the way?"

"I can't talk to you about it but we have another operation."

"Another? Like the one that kicked off these protests? Put it off." She sounded desperate. "Cancel it."

"Can't do that. Some old guard in the White Fang are insisting upon it and in the miners guild, too. They're putting pressure on me and Avalanche." Bisque crossed his arms and replied coldly.

"Who?" She demanded. "I'll convince them otherwise."

"You can't. It's Dyne and Adam Taurus."

"Taurus? And Dyne, both? You have to do this?"

"Or else I'm afraid that Avalanche will lose control over the strikes completely."

"So? Let it happen. You can't tell me you meant for things to go this far. Fiona said it was mostly symbolic."

"We'd never be a player in the unions ever again if we stood by the wayside now. We have to be willing to act as much or more than anyone and everyone else."

"Damn it. When's the operation? Will you tell me that at least?" She pleaded.

"Tomorrow night. The others want to put a fire under Jacques Schnee and prevent him from getting comfortable. They want to force him to act and capitulate to the strikes. We had this operation in mind before and one thing led to another once the others found out about it."

"I'll get your money wired to you. Tell me about the General's project with Amity." She leaned forward towards him. She was anxious to hear about it.

I watched her stick out a hand. Bisque took it. A dull lilac hue took over both their hands all the way up to the elbow. I could feel the low hum of aura from where I watched through the screen window. She was doing _something_.

"The General is turning the colosseum into a satellite. Getting communication back up and running between the kingdoms. It's his current number one priority."

She withdrew. "That's it? That's why he's diverting supplies from Mantle? At least as far as you know, I suppose."

"The intel is good. We had people who worked on the project come to us," Bisque said. "Both humans and faunus who were or are involved in the construction joined our union network. They reported it to us."

"That's… that's good news I suppose. But the rest you have got to find a way to settle down the protests and get them to vote for me. I'm willing to grant all your concessions once I become a council member. None of them are unreasonable or outside of my policies," Hill negotiated. She really wanted a bunch of politically active people on her side come election day. I could get that. Voter efficacy was low all too often, even back in Vale.

"I'll talk to people and spread the word. I only promise to try."

"And another thing, Fiona mentioned two other people. She mentioned Cloud Strife. What's his angle in all this? I know he's been involved in the drug game and a prison break," Hill wondered.

"He was after the same information you were. Fiona should have been able to tell you that," Bisque answered. "Now, if that's actually everything, you can wire the money over and get out of my bar. We're closed. No service at the moment. We've got a happy hour at seven. You could come back then."

"Well thank you anyways. And don't worry about your money. I'll leave, then."

He came out to me again through the screen door in the back of the bar.

"You shook her hand," I introduced. "Why?"

"She's got a lie detection semblance. It's touch based, striker ranged," he informed me.

I raised an eyebrow. A politician that valued truth in their very soul. Not her heart or mind but in the core of her very being. You didn't find that on every street corner.

Well she had my vote. Not that I could vote. None of my identities were Atlas or Mantle citizens so I was pretty much in the same class as a felon. Not that I wasn't also a felon.

"You sure you should have told her so much about the operation. She could interfere," I told him. "If she does that's on you."

"I didn't tell her that much. And if she does interfere it might be for the best. I don't really want this op to happen. Maybe she'll be able to stop the operation, Avalanche won't have to back down, and nobody will get hurt."

"Yeah well I don't want to go to prison. Something to keep in mind. The law isn't exactly on our side," I muttered. "For all that we're standing here plotting this in broad daylight."

"Oh I wasn't aware. I'll try to keep that in mind." His tone was as dry as ice.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I scoped out the ship I would be sinking with Neo. Or 'Mint' as she was in her disguise. She snuck aboard easily enough and took a photo of a map of the ship with her scroll. She sent it to me and I examined it closely.

I needed to figure out where we would set the charges so that the explosion would just sink the vessel and not destroy the harbor in a dust driven detonation.

The place had cameras for security and a handful of human and faunus guards. But for the most part the ship was ruled and watched over by robots. Robots I'd have no problem taking apart. It was the people I needed to lure out somehow so that they didn't die when the ship went down or similar.

There were lifeboats onboard but I didn't need any more blood on my hands. I was powerful enough that I suppose I could take steps to avoid death now. I didn't need to go all out against a group of aura-lacking sentries anymore.

I could bop them without killing them now. And I knew Neo was in a similar ballpark. She just usually didn't care.

I studied the map in detail. Neo turned visible again as she paced away from the large grey vessel. It had soft blue mooring lights and a big Schnee Dust Company logo on the side.

I could see men and women and machines up on the deck at their posts. They all had smooth looking assault rifles and shotguns. The kind of heavy weaponry the SDC needed to keep their high valued assets safe. I was sure they were on decent high alert now, too. I'd scraped with some of them at the mine so they knew that wasn't just an accident.

She came up behind me on my bike and wrapped her arms around me. I turned around to spot her small smirk. She was still teasing me. At least she was still doing what I told her to do in a general sense.

She pulled herself snuggly against me and pressed her face into my back. I could feel it against my skin after a layer of clothes over armor. Maybe it was just her aura I was feeling against me like the flare of a cold burning candle.

I could feel her mischievous mood. She had no one to target but me at the moment.

"Don't be a brat, Neo." She shuffled softly against me in what I realized was mute laughter.

I revved my engine and pulled away from the ship.

"I'm thinking about setting off an explosion as a distraction. To lure the people off the ship. The last thing we want is to have to kill people and stain our unblemished records."

The wind whistled through my face as I pulled the bike into traffic.

"Maybe I'll set you loose on the guards. Harass them with illusions that get them off the ship. Would that make you happy or would you rather blow something up."

She shrugged against me unhelpfully.

"Well then we will probably do a little of column A and a little of column B. How many people can you teleport at once with you, Neo."

She tapped my chest three times. That meant I could get four of us on board. More if I flew. Just five of us to cause enough of a ruckus that we drew the living guards' attention but not so much noise that we brought the entire facility down on our heads. There was a balance to play. A particular key to strike.

I needed to draw only so much attention and it had to be the kind of attention that grabbed living beings and left the machines to mostly do their work.

I recalled the robots. They were humanoid things for the most part. They were built fast and could be destroyed just as easily by hunters like us. Their weapons would only cause a problem if I gave their targeting computers time to really line up a shot and if I gave them a chance to shoot as a group.

Not allowing them to use their strength of numbers was a good call. Don't sit still enough that they got a good solution on me. It was a good start but I needed more.

There could be more menacing machines on board. Giant spider or scorpion bots or larger humanoid mechs like the Atlesian Paladins we had fought back at Beacon's fall.

I wasn't sure how much trouble those kinds of machines were going to give me given how much stronger I had become. Plus I was loaded with dust crystals and I knew how to use them.

I needed to start a fire. Something like that would draw the human crew to the lifeboats and off the ship but would leave the machines behind.

I could also use Neo's power to get a few of us on board and get the party started.

I pulled up on a gondola for vehicles and pulled out my scroll and started looking over the ships schematics. I say schematics but there was a small 'you are here' sign on it indicating it was really a map set up somewhere inside.

I wanted to set the charges near the front of the ship away from the cargo hold where all the dust was sitting around and waiting to explode.

That should stop a chain reaction of explosions depending on how big the explosives we used were. I had better make those myself.

I was already thinking through the designs I knew to cause a hole just large enough to rupture the exterior hull of the boat. Just enough to rock the ship and not blow up the entire harbor.

I swung by Aurum's club on a gondola for vehicles and picked up a .50 caliber pistol for Bisque who still hadn't made up his mind. So I made it up for him. I put the heavy boxes of ammunition behind me on the bike with the spare magazines for the weapon.

It was a good thing he and the others had yet to be in a real huntsman-class fight or they would have lost pretty badly.

The only thing to do from here was build the bombs and I could do that easily enough at my apartment. So that was my next stop.

I wired together several dust crystals, enough that I thought it would be able to blow a hole in the ship's exterior if it was set against it but not so much that it would spread through the rest of the boat's interior. I made two because I thought one was probably enough to do it so I might as well go all in.

Then I set them up to be able to blow from a remote source. In this case just my scroll. It was actually pretty easy. Not as easy as throwing them really hard but just about using two small arduinos, one a piece.

The only thing left to do was share the plan with Avalanche, the miners, and Taurus and hope that went off without a hitch before the plan even started.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	63. Corel II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I rolled up on Seventh Heaven with a backfire or two from my bike. It was starting to become familiar to me. I walked inside to see Avalanche around and getting ready for the operation.

I handed Bisque his new weapon and harness and he grimaced. He took his current one off and put on the new one. "Any advice on how to use it?"

"No. It's a gun. I don't like guns. What's hard about point and click?"

"More than you think," he returned. Fair enough. A lot went into a sword fight, too.

"So… what's the plan, Cloud?" Wenge asked.

I pulled my explosives from behind me and juggled them a little.

"Should you be handling explosives like that?" Wenge asked again.

"Probably not. But I'm not a little bitch. I'd survive. One of them, at least. The plan is to set the deck on fire and teleport onboard with Neo. We let them evacuate, we kill robots, we put a hole in the hull. Pretty simple."

"No killing," Bisque said.

"No killing," I agreed. "We'll make that shit look easy, too."

"Let's just hope Taurus agrees," Jasper muttered. "He was insisting on being involved when he was last here."

"Good. We could use another killer on deck," I said.

"No killing?" Wenge asked. His voice came out a whinge.

"No killing, but," I drew out the noise, "we could always use another professional. Y'all are amateurs. You could die. Taurus will take a bite out of those robots and spit them out."

"Well aren't you Mr. Take Charge," Jasper came up and wrapped a hand around my neck and pulled herself close to me.

"Well I have to be. None of you know how." I disentangled myself from her and stepped to the side. Her aura at that range tasted of blueberries. It was a delicious flavor, though, not one I would have thought myself partial to.

_We wouldn't be a good idea, Jaune. Remember that. You're probably not a good idea for anyone. _

I let the self depreciating thoughts rule me. It was better that way. I allowed the familiarity of it to relax me. Someone getting close to me like that had made me tense.

Neo waltzed up from beside me and put both her elbows on the counter and leaned her head down on her hands.

"Are you feeling alright Neo?" I asked.

She gave me a tired thumbs up. She might just be sleepy. She'd be awake when it came time to work.

"So how have you been handling the training?" I asked.

"I'm sore." Wenge stretched. He twisted side to side.

"You're a monster, Cloud," Jasper informed me. "What's a girl got to do to make you take it easier on her." Her fox tail swished behind her in red and white. Up and down it went. I tried not to stare at her behind, or close to it. It drew the eye, though.

"Not ask me for help with it for one. You think you're up for this? Not too beat up?"

"I'm all ready," Jasper said. She flexed a bicep at me as though that would prove it. I chuckled a little at her antics.

"Me too," Wenge echoed her. He didn't flex, though.

"How about you Bisque?" I asked.

"I'm green. This ought to help. Thanks Cloud." He checked the chamber of his new pistol expertly. He was getting used to the new mechanisms as we spoke.

He examined the loaded magazines and strapped them to a bandolier on his person.

"I have more ammunition for it. You shouldn't need it for this operation. Leave most of the robot killing to me, Neo, and Taurus."

"Hey Cloud, you're not really, um, going to kill Taurus are you?" Wenge asked.

"I might have to. He's unwilling to play the game."

"And what game is that? The drug game? We don't play that either," Jasper said. "You haven't threatened to kill us yet, though."

"You still play along with it. You play the information brokerage game. You still play like your lives matter and you don't kill just because it might be the easiest option. Taurus doesn't. It's his way or the highway. That makes him unreliable for anything other than his agenda."

"I think I get it," Bisque said. "You can't threaten him. You can't barter with him. He's not like you. You're willing to compromise. He's not."

"Exactly. He doesn't do business. I do. A lot. I trade favors, I sell my skills. He's not about that life."

The bar door jingled and Taurus came striding in. His white mask on, katana by his side.

"Speak of the devil," I said.

He snorted. "What's the plan to take down the ship?" He asked. No beating around the bush. No chitchatting. He was straight to the point.

I held up one of the explosives. "We've got two of these. We're going to plant them on the inner hull." I flicked open the map of the ship on my scroll and showed the group where we'd be setting up the bombs. "I go in first with a fireball to set up the evacuation of the people onboard. Then Neo teleports the rest of you to the deck. One of us stays behind and watches the vehicles. That'll be you Wenge."

"It would be easier and quieter to kill the guards. They'll set off an alarm. We'll only have minutes," Taurus growled.

"Which is why we'll work fast. Neo will teleport us back out. Once we reach the rondezvous point, that is. Here near the command deck."

I pointed out the deck of the ship I was referring to on my map.

"We fight through any machines that stay onboard and get in our way. In and out, five minutes."

Taurus looked at my face and that of Avalanche. "It would be easier to kill the crew."

"No killing. None," Bisque said. "This isn't the White Fang. This is Avalanche. If you can't handle that, you're out."

He had guts talking to Taurus like that. Adam could rip his guts out and show them to him. The only thing stopping him was a tenuous alliance.

"Anyone I knock out will go down with the ship when we sink it. It would be more merciful to kill them," Taurus said. I winced. I'd used similar logic before. It wasn't a far leap for me to see his side. And the operation would be easier if we killed the sentries. But Avalanche had rules and I made the plan live within them.

"We'll give them plenty of time to get off the ship. We've got a teleporter on our side," Bisque shot back. Adam hunched over his weapon like he might draw it. He coiled like a spring, ready to strike with alarming speed. I made myself stand relaxed. If he attacked I'd just have to deal with it.

Neo had spun around on her stool when Adam had walked in. She gave a slow barely perceptible nod when she was brought up.

"Very well," Adam grunted. He uncoiled slowly. But he was no less dangerous. I was sure he could draw his weapon fast enough.

"Then it's settled. We'll only have minutes between when the fires start and emergency responders show up. We'll need to be fast and split up. Neo and Bisque will make up one team. Jasper, Taurus, and I will be the other."

I gave one of the bombs to Bisque. "The bombs are both hooked up to my scroll. I'll set them off once we're clear. Any questions?" I asked.

No one had any. They just stared at me in silence.

"Then let's get started."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The smog of the town refracted the sunset. Casting red and orange light all across us as we drove. Me and Neo were on my bike and all the others piled into Avalanche's truck.

When we came up on the docks I jumped off the bike and hung in the air. I crushed a dust crystal and cast a fireball forward. It splashed in and through the top deck of the ship we were targeting. The_ White Whale _was bold across its side. It's name wasn't the important part of the story. The cargo was the real focus.

Almost immediately an alarm started to blare and red lights flashed in a cyclic fashion that glinted mutely compared to the fading dusk sun.

I didn't land back on the bike with Neo. Instead I glid forward on the air currents and landed on the deck of the ship. I hid behind a mooring station as people rushed past my hiding place and off the ship. Some took to the plank that led down to the docks and others made for the lifeboats.

I let them past me without making a sound from where I hunched down. There was a shattering sound as Neo appeared next to me with Bisque, Jasper, and Taurus.

The alarm wailed for a moment and no more people came rushing up. Machines began to come from beneath deck and put out the fire with extinguishers.

Adam snarled and rushed them. He cut through them with ease, sheathing and redrawing his weapon as he moved. I got my first look at his style then as he side-flipped in place and cast his blade through the machines.

I gave them all a nod and we worked our way beneath deck. Our two parties split up.

We came across more of the small humanoid mechs and I crushed them with my bare hands where they got in my way.

I drew my long sword and I stabbed through a robot's head. I swung to the side as much as I could in the tight quarters and cut another in half at the waist.

I kicked another to the ground as I descended the stairs and I crushed it's chest under my boot. These machines really stood no chance against me. Most were still armed with fire extinguishers rather than sleek Atlesian rifles. They reminded me of ants. They were responding to only one emergency at a time.

It was easy to destroy these smaller robots and there wasn't really the room for bigger ones beneath the hull.

I came across our planting location and began to plant my bomb. I set it against the outside hull and pressed a few buttons on it. A green light flashed and it was good to go.

We ascended back through the ship once more. We got to the command deck and here there was room for larger mechs and for fighting.

I slashed my way through a robot and felt my semblance activate. I pulled my shield from my back. The titanic broad mobile cover allowed me to protect myself from a firing squad of robots and make my way up on them.

I cut through wave after wave of the Atlesian droids. A massive spider bot dropped from the ceiling. I flew at it and Cross-Slashed it before it could do us any real harm. It fell into smouldering pieces with the wires exposed and flickering.

An explosion rocked the ship and I stopped moving. Something was wrong. The ship began to tilt. Something was beyond wrong.

We fought for a moment longer and Bisque came up on us. He was carrying Neo who was singed and soaked both.

"Your bomb went off on her," he said. "I don't think she's going to be able to teleport us out."

I rushed over and put a hand on her face. "Neo…" I murmured.

She opened one eye and looked up at me. She rubbed her face into my hand and sighed a little. She'd be okay. She'd have to be.

A thousand apologies were on the tip of my tongue. I fucked up. I thought my bomb was set up fine but instead it just went off. There was some irony in this. In her getting hurt instead of me when I was the one who deserved it by screwing up.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to her.

She smiled and nodded.

I deserved to be the one hurt. I'd been so flippant with those bombs. Instead it was Neo who took the explosion. It should have been me.

She leaned into my palm firmly. I drew back. I felt shaky.

"Keep carrying her. We'll make for the docks. Past the fires-"

"You turned on us, I knew you couldn't be trusted," Taurus prowled up on me nice and slow. More like a cougar than a bull. He had his hand on the hilt of his weapon but it still wasn't drawn.

"Me?" I asked. "How would I benefit from our plan getting fucked. The part where I almost lost Neo? Damn it!"

The ship tilted a little more. Taurus's footing remained sure.

He growled and paced into my range. I stepped back and fronted on him. I drew my broadsword against him.

He slashed at me, drawing his weapon from the scabbard lightning fast. I blocked and activated my semblance. I swept upon him with a glowing blue light.

"Wait you two! We're still on the freighter. The whole thing is sinking, can you really afford to be fighting?!" Jasper called out.

"Let's find out," I muttered.

"I've had enough out of you, human," he said.

Our blades met between us in rapid horizontal strikes. He quickly sheathed his sword and drew it out again in a dancing fast motion which swept all across my body as he side-flipped in place.

I blocked it all. Then I hit him with my baseball style swing, shoulder to waist with my hips turned into the motion and a shout on my lips.

The blow sent him flying back when he blocked it. And he'd been upside down in mid flip as I swung it at him.

He landed neatly despite the brutality of my attack. He pulled his sheath from his side and fired at me. Shotgun pellets buzzed past my head and I floated into a roll. My hand outstretched to get a grip on his collar.

He backed up and swatted at my hand with his blade and twisted. He fired off two more shots from his shotgun. One hit me in the shoulder and made me falter and the next hit me in the stomach and made me gasp.

He sheathed his weapon and blurred at me in a wide strike in the tight confines of the ship we hardly had room to fight and our blades scored trenches in the metal around us.

I front-flipped in a tight fashion and brought my blade down on him in a wave of blue. He stepped to the side but I side kicked him, then I roundhouse kicked him, then I brought my blade around at his head in a tight arc which clipped his stomach and made him grunt.

He slid back and I approached him with a back flip. It was an empty hop, all aggression with zero commitment. He held out his blade partially sheathed to block but I just landed in front of him and waited for his block to drop.

Then I Cross-Slashed him. He blocked the first two lightning fast slashes. But the next three lit him up. It flung him down the corridor of the ship and deeper inside.

He approached me again, faster this time because I didn't have Limit. He unsheathed his blade as quick as a bullet and slashed at me. Then he slapped me in the face with his hard sheath.

I growled and pressed on.

"Go. Take Neo and get yourselves out of here," I ordered. She was at the forefront of my mind. My slip up could have killed her. Even as I fought my mind raced to find the point where I might have fucked that bomb's construction up.

It must have been somewhere and it must have been costly.

It was distracting me in this life or death battle.

"But-" Bisque started. He and Jasper hovered to the side of Adam's and my battle.

"Don't worry about me, just go! Get Neo somewhere safe. Tell her I'm sorry."

I held my ground and Taurus's and my swords met a half dozen times in a matter of a second. Then we seemed to pause with his blade sheathed once more, me with my weapon back over behind my head, ready for a massive overhead.

Then we flickered out again and that impossible moment broke. He came at me from the side. I blocked and sent my blade in a wide sweeping diagonal cut.

He deflected it and came back at me in an overhead slash that tore into the ship above his head. I countered and riposted but I was finding the amount of room I had to move within the bulkheads lacking. I slashed at him diagonally and he twisted to the side and put a firm boot against my chest. He pushed against me.

I stumbled back a step. The ship tilted more to one side as we fought. I came at him again with my enormous weapon making his look like a toothpick. I cut at him twice horizontally, once from each direction. He blocked both by holding his weapon vertically and shielding himself behind it.

He sheathed his weapon and drew it once more in a flash and came at me with a narrow front-flip. He cut me shoulder to hip and I was forced back a little more.

I gave a narrow rolling side-flip. I slashed at him again and cut his chest once more. I tore at his red aura. Ripping away at it, I landed neatly on my feet inside of his range.

He cut me a half dozen times. I had over extended and his cuts came like flashes. They swept over me from seemingly every direction.

I got out of it by kicking him hard in the side of the knee. He came twisting down and I kneed him in the face hard. Unable to bring my weapon to bear against him I grabbed him by the collar and threw him up into the bulkhead and slammed him down into my knee.

I charged in place for a moment. Storing a little bit of time away where I saw the opportunity, I hesitated mid-fight.

I dragged my weapon around and he slashed forward knocking it aside and cutting me across the chest again.

In that moment I became Limit Broken. We'd traded enough hits that I crossed the damage threshold alarmingly quickly. I came at him in my Limitless state. He swept under a bulkhead, around and stabbed at me. I easily blocked to one side. He furiously cut at me and I blocked each and every single one of his strikes in turn.

He did a tight backflip and slashed at me. He caught me across the chest and ripped a chunk of my aura out. He shuffled back a step.

Then I Limit Break Bladebeamed him. He quickly sheathed his weapon and left it partially uncovered. He absorbed it into his weapon. The energy went from deep blue to crimson. It crackled for a moment.

There was a moment where he grinned at me beneath his mask. In that second I knew I'd fucked up again. Maybe just as bad as when I got Neo hurt.

Taurus slashed at me and released a beam of red energy that washed through the bulkheads and my aura. The world was painted red and black for a terrifying moment as he slashed forward.

It opened my chest and pierced right through my aura. It left my golden aura bubbling off to the side of the cut. The attack flung me back and my head slammed hard into a wall.

The ship was sinking quickly now and I was bleeding all over the floor. I drew my scroll and with a press I set off the second charge as Taurus paced towards me like a tiger.

The explosion shook the ship once more. Taurus stumbled. It was enough.

And like that I ran. I flew away and up stairs. I made it to the top deck with Taurus hot on my heels. I hovered to the slipping bow and I jumped. I floated away, my half cape fluttering behind me.

I flew all the way to one of the buildings near the docks and collapsed on a roof.

I watched Avalanche's truck make it's get-away. They left my bike behind. That was fair enough, I suppose. I felt a touch delirious. Blood loss can do that to you. I examined my chest wound. I'd probably need stitches. It would have been worse if not for my armor.

I was slipping into unconsciousness. I tried to hold on desperately but I was hurt pretty badly. I leaned against a wall and I collapsed.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	64. Corel III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

_I was sprinting through the woods at night. An unbearable pain in my chest. I slid to a stop and ripped my clothes off to see something massive worming its way around in my stomach. I took the edge of Crocea Mors to my body and screamed as I tried to cut it out of me. _

_A massive rolling Grimm masked worm flopped out of my chest from the gaping wound I'd cut in my side. It looked up at me with a pleased look. _

_It was killing me. _

_It was killing me._

_I was going to die and that would be preferable to this. This agony was too much for anyone to bear. _

I woke up still on top of the building I passed out on top of. I felt like shit. My chest was crusty with blood and Neo… I felt like crying. My mistake had fucked her up. I'd need to find her and apologize.

I grimaced and pulled myself to my feet. I covered myself as best as I could then started a long painful march to Seventh Heaven. I tried not to draw much attention but I was a tall bleeding figure. I got looks. There was nothing I could do about that.

At least the mission had been a success. The _White Whale _was gone when I woke up. At the bottom of the harbor. And it hadn't exploded and destroyed the docks which was a nice plus.

The plan had technically been a success. But only in a technical sense.

I dragged myself into Seventh Heaven with a chiming of bells.

Jasper was there wiping down the counter.

"Cloud!"

"Jasper." I returned easily. "How was Neo?"

"She was fine within a few hours. She left. Not sure where to. But what about you? You're hurt!"

"He got a good shot off on me. It won't happen again. I need to find Neo. I need to tell her I'm sorry."

"I think she knows," Jasper countered. She pulled a medical kit from behind the bar.

"Doesn't matter. She's been all I've had. And I almost got her killed."

"I told you she was fine. She walked it off. Where have you been?"

"Sleeping it off. Taurus put a hole in me."

She started trying to pull my clothes and armor off. I jerked back away from her. I didn't even really mean to.

"Let me help you," she pleaded.

"After I find out where Neo is. She might have gone back to our hotel."

I pulled my scroll out and sent her a message.

_Where are you? I'm at Seventh Heaven._

I waited a few moments and got a message back from her address.

_!omw _

I sighed. Neo was not a talker, even through text where she could have been. It was a touch annoying but I was glad she was alright.

"We told her you were fighting Taurus. I think she went looking for you," Jasper said. "We thought you died."

"Almost. I'm still kicking around though," I shot back.

"Still think you can beat him?" She fired.

"Give me a few days to recover and definitely. I won't make the same mistakes again. I gave him an edge over me. I handed him the power he needed to win. His semblance surprised me. It won't work twice," I promised.

And it wouldn't. It had been an odd interaction of our powers but it had only happened because I'd gone for the Bladebeam. Any other Limit Break would have caused things to play out in my favor. Or closer to it. He wouldn't have had that devastating slice.

Jasper was unrelenting. She pulled and tugged at my clothes, she was determined to get a look at where I was cut.

"Come on. Let me take a look at you. Let's get you cleaned up."

"You got a shower here?" I asked.

She nodded and took my hand and started to guide me. I stripped out of my clothes and armor before she'd even left the room, leaving her blushing but I was too tired to care.

I hopped in the shower and the water burned against my chest wound. It wasn't a particularly deep laceration, it hadn't opened my abdomen like some other wounds I'd had before, and it was located just above the bottom of my rib cage to the right side.

I hissed under the hot water as it started to undo the blood clot and clean the wound. I bled a lot into that small shower. The water ran red for a long long time.

I popped back out and put my trousers back on. I came down to where Jasper had the medical kit.

"Think you have stuff to sew me back together in there?" I asked her. I stood shirtless in her bar. She stared for a moment before she opened it and rifled through it. She withdrew medical line, tweezers, scissors, and a needle.

I propped myself up and wiped my chest down with alcohol wipes and then I started to sew myself back up.

That was when Neo came rushing in. She took me in for a moment.

"Neo…" I paused. She just stared at me. "Neo, I'm so sorry my explosive got you hurt. I've been running it through in my head and I have no idea when I made the mistake but it must have been somewhe-"

She walked up and tried to put her arms around me. Her arms weren't long enough to get all the way around me. I sighed into her touch. I felt the feeling of our bare skin against one another's. It was warm despite her chilling aura.

I relaxed into the touch and shuddered once against the cold of her aura. Goodbumps ran down my arms and back at her touch. Her exposed stomach and cleavage ran against my waist.

"Sorry," I breathed. "Sorry."

I had paused mid sewing myself back up. I continued once she backed away. I dabbed at the still bleeding wound with a cloth as I worked to keep my eyes free and my hands mostly clean of blood.

There was a growing pile of bloodied bandages and cloths next to me on one of the bar stools near where I leaned.

Neo and Jasper both watched me work until I put the last knot in the wire and pulled the wound tightly closed. I gasped a little in pain.

"Hopefully this reaches you that you're not invincible," Jasper said.

"I didn't need another reminder of that."

"But you're still going to fight Taurus?"

"Got to now. It's fucking on now. The gloves are off."

"You should have had them off to begin with."

"I made a mistake."

Neo took a Cosmo Canyon she ordered by pulling on my arm and splashed it against my chest. The alcohol burned and I hissed.

I glared at her. But she just leaned on one palm and smiled at me. I figured she was allowed a little of that considering what I put her through. Maybe I deserved it more than a little. I had to clean myself off of the sticky liquid again. I threw all the bandages and cloths and alcoholic wipes I'd accumulated away.

I put my huntsman clothes and armor back on. I strapped my harness and sword back to my back. In a week or so I'd be right as rain. But for now I needed to act like I was as hurt as I was.

"They confiscated and probably impounded by bike Neo. My bike, my precious, precious bike," I bemoaned.

She only laughed at me in silence. A shuffling of her shoulders and a wide open smile. She was grinning the entire time. She was happy that I was alive. She'd been worried. She tried to cover it by tormenting me but I saw through it a little. Only a little though. The rest was on to how she was a sadist.

"Thank you Jasper." I slid her back her medical kit across the counter after putting everything away in it.

I'd need to repair my huntsman clothes. They'd been torn in the fight. We could find a place that could fix or repair it, though. It would just take time. "And let me know if you see Taurus again. I've got a blood score to settle with him, now."

Might as well add his to my list of names I was constantly looking out for.

"You're really serious about fighting him again after what he did to you?"

"He got lucky," I countered.

"_You_ got lucky," she countered back

"I did, but he got lucky first. That's how he won. In the luck race he got to the finish line first. I'll get him the next time we fight, just wait and see."

"If you say so. I think you should avoid him."

"Enough about that. What's been going down since I was out?" I asked.

"Well the unions are in action. Schnee will have to make concessions now. He's got no reserves of dust. Well, not as many and he knows that they are not safe and they're dwindling," Jasper said. She wiped some of my blood off the counter with a disinfectant wipe.

At least I knew this place was that hygenic.

"He'll need his workers back to work to keep up with local demand. He can't afford not to. He doesn't have any other customers what with the embargo and all. He's losing money fast as it is. And he has competitors. He'll have to give us something."

"Is that where Bisque and Wenge are?" I wondered.

"They're leading the charge with the strikes. Avalanche needs to be seen at the forefront of things if we want to be major players."

"Politics," I grumbled. "I'd rather be stabbed in the chest."

"You know what? You're lucky you're cute because that shit wouldn't fly with anybody else."

"Who says anything about being cute?" I asked.

"Don't be bratty," she said, leaning on the counter.

"I'm serious," I said.

"At least take it easy for the next few days," she said. "Promise me that."

"I make no promises. Anything could happen. But yeah, I probably will. Keep an eye out for Taurus for me."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

To be honest I was in quite a bit of pain. I'd taken some ibuprofen but it only seemed to bed the beast down and not so much actually able to put it to sleep. It was still rearing to clip at me. Nipping at my heels as I made my way around.

Plus they'd taken my bike so I had no wheels which meant Neo and I were walking to the seamstress where they could repair my shirt. Walking and in pain. And I had no one to complain to besides Neo who would probably just get a kick out of it my distress. Especially considering what I put her through. I deserved that.

I needed to get my hands on some real painkillers. That meant talking to Aurum and getting up to Atlas.

I took a gondola up to the floating island and got my shirt fixed up before I made my way to The Den and through its usual din. It only took an hour or two of waiting to get my shirt fixed up.

I wasn't sure how Aurum basically lived in all that noise twenty-four seven like he seemed to. I wasn't sure how he wasn't deaf.

He greeted me with a shallow wave to come over. I plopped down on the couch and let out a groan of pain as I rattled my ribcage in the process.

"I need painkillers," I told Aurum. "I'm willing to pay extra for them if you can get them to me fast."

He reached into a pocket and dumped a few pills out on his hand from a little bottle. He handed them to me.

"What's this?" I asked. I handled the round pills for a moment in my palm.

"Vicodin," he said. "I'll get you some more. This was just from my personal stash and what I had on me."

I took the pills with no water. I groaned as I did. That was that good shit. Real dosages of painkillers was what I needed.

"What happened to you?" He asked.

"I lost a fight," I confessed. "Ass end of an ass kicking and all that."

"To who?" He wondered.

"Adam fucking Taurus."

"Ah that makes sense."

"It does?" I asked.

"He's one of the few people in town that could give you a figurative bloody nose," he spoke over the noise of his music.

"Yeah well he got fucking lucky. I'll kill him next time," I said.

"Next time, hmm?" He made a questioning noise.

"Add him to my list. I want to catch him and kill him." He nodded at that and I could see him mentally do so. It was good for his business anyways.

"I heard Schnee's ship went down full of cargo. Was that you?" He asked.

"It was." I said. I sighed. Those were strong painkillers and someone brought me a whole pill bottle of them. I forked over a few hundred Lien in exchange. I could already feel them working. That was that good stuff. They were relaxing me.

Just because I'd been hurt worse on no painkillers didn't mean I relished the experience. Maybe I wanted to be able to relax and not feel like I was dying.

He laughed at me and I managed a weak glare.

I groaned and waned in and out of consciousness in the laie of drug lord who I would argue was kind of a friend. How things change. If you'd told me I would be in this position back at Beacon I would have laughed in your face.

Well maybe not. I'd had no confidence back then.

But then a lot of shit had happened to me since freshman year. I found out I was a failed experiment who only got passed around on the off chance that they succeeded.

I had the relic of knowledge still on my belt. It was secured to my person at all times. I considered asking it when the pain would fucking stop for good. It was still there. It was just muted by the Vicodin.

"Can I get you a drink?" Aurum asked.

"Should I mix alcohol and these kinds of painkillers?" I shot back.

"I always do," he said. "It's a fucking trip."

"Fuck it," I said. "Something straight and hard, if you please."

He ordered himself a screwdriver and me a few shots of vodka.

I took two of them and the room began to slouch. I was starting to feel a lot less shitty.

I sighed into the comfortable couch. Even with the music at such a high level I might just pass out. I waned in and out of consciousness in a way that was completely different to the way I'd done that on Hyper. On Hyper it had been all rush, making things a blur and making me wax and wane. On this it was all drowsiness so that I was just on the edge of falling asleep constantly.

"Fucking Taurus."

"What's that?"

"Taurus. He fucking cheated. I handed him the power to win and he nearly cut me in half. Luckily I had armor. I can't believe shit went down like that. I should have killed him. He just absorbed my attack. Must have been his semblance. Semblances are bullshit."

"I'm told you have quite the doozy of a semblance. That's just what I heard at least. You ripped into the prisoner transport like it was a tin can."

"Maybe. It's just bullshit when somebody else does, too. It's unfair. I'm going to pass out here for a bit." I leaned my head down onto the couch cushions.

I was straight off to dreamland despite the _wump-wump-wump_ of the music in the place.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	65. Proud Ice Queen VIII

**I've done a decent job breaking Jaune's mind with the Sephiroth aspects. Now I need to put it back together with the Cloud bits. I hope you enjoy the reunion.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Blake and I were on a stakeout. We were the most patient members of team RWBY so we made a certain amount of sense. We were watching over a dance club called The Den from a rooftop nearby. We'd gotten an anonymous tip about Cloud Strife and Neapolitan being in this location and Winter had put us on it.

She had us here while she watched over another location where they'd been spotted. It was long work, sitting out just watching a doorway on a bare grimy rooftop.

We found nothing for hours and hours.

Eventually it bore fruit and a woman with pink and brown hair and an exposed midriff came out of The Den. She was followed by a tall blonde with spiky hair.

He wore dark clothes and a half cape. But his weapon… it was unmistakable. Bronze and white in a harness on his back...

"Blake…" I hissed.

She jumped from the roof after the two of them without a word.

Neapolitan vanished. One moment she was there, the next she was gone, she just shattered like a pane of glass into nothingness. That left the familiar stranger wearing diamond earrings and the tall sword with the long red handle.

I jumped down and landed on a glyph as I did. Then another, bouncing off them as I made my way to ground level.

The man turned and began to glow a faint deep blue. He drew a three-foot-and-change longsword. Blake jumped at him with her sword but he knocked her aside with blinding speed. Their weapons met with a resounding _clang_. His half cape fluttered and gave him an interesting silhouette as he moved and slammed Blake back with a single wide slash.

By his side jingled a blue and gold lamp on a chain.

She landed like a dancer on her feet with her weapon in one hand.

"Jaune!" Blake gasped from the ground.

Fact one: Cloud Strife was Jaune Arc.

Fact two: I wasn't sure Blake and I could take him.

He was glowing that blue with pale wisps of light surrounding him. It only meant one thing, he was Limit Broken.

"Blake!" I hauled her to her feet and looked down the street at Jaune. "Wait."

"What?"

"He has the relic of knowledge."

Blake's head whipped around to look at Jaune.

"He's..." Blake trailed.

"Jaune Arc is Cloud Strife," I muttered to her.

"Indeed," Jaune said. He was still holding his longsword with the long hilt. "Good to see you, Weiss." His tone was low and smouldering. Had he always sounded like that? Or had I missed his voice?

"And Blake," he continued, "it's been a long time. When were you two reunited?"

"Just after you killed Ren and Nora," Blake growled.

"Ah…"

"That's all you have to say about it?! Ah?!" Blake demanded with heat.

Blake made to move forward but I held her back.

"Weiss we can take him!" She looked back at me.

"Wait! His Limit Break is active. He'll tear you apart. It's a trick! He's not vulnerable!"

Blake looked over, her amber eyes taking in the blue glow reflectively. "So what do we do?"

"I was never able to beat him," I confessed. "But you used to be able to time it out. Wait for the power to evaporate."

Jaune was looking away, giving us a sense of privacy as we talked. He kicked a rock down the street and leaned the sword against his shoulder. He looked comfortable. He even looked handsome with the piercings and his hair done up like that.

Damn him. The absolute son of a bitch.

"So what? We just keep him talking?"

"It's worth a shot. After the power fades he'll have to recharge it." I looked past her and called out. "Jaune, or do you prefer Cloud?"

"Weiss, either is fine." He nodded.

"You have the relic of knowledge."

"I do." He pulled it off the chain at his side and held it out. "I used one of the questions, it still has two left."

"What did you ask the lamp?" I asked.

"I asked it about mother."

"You asked it about your mom?" Blake sounded incredulous.

"Ah, I should explain. I meant Salem." He stepped closer to us. He still burned with the ethereal fire of his semblance. I took a wary step back and he _froze_. "Are you afraid of me, Weiss?"

"You call Salem mother?" I asked. I ignored his awful question poignantly.

"Only when I slip up." He gave a sigh.

"Salem's your mom? She gave birth to you?" Blake asked.

"For a certain definition of birth. I was born in a lab. A test tube and some of her cells created me."

"So that's why you became her agent," Blake confirmed. She was trying to puzzle it together.

"I didn't know about that until recently. Until after she made me kill my friends." He said. He still looked relaxed with the straight edge of Crocea Mors against his shoulder. His expression turned into a hard line.

"She made you?" I asked.

"Salem has dominion over my mind, she seized control over me and made me kill Ren and Nora."

"So Ozpin was right. You were a sleeper agent," I murmured.

"Of sorts," he agreed. "Of a very certain sort."

"You're buying this?" Blake asked.

"He has the relic," I pointed out.

"It could be a trap."

"The relics are the end goals, Blake. Why would Salem set a trap with them?"

She didn't have a good response to that and growled.

"What happened at Haven, Jaune?" I asked.

"I cornered Leonardo and Salem's Grimm killed him. From there she spoke to me," he grimaced but continued. "She spoke to me and I had to obey her orders. She made me kill Ren and Nora and leave with the relic. Eventually I broke free of her spell." His expression schooled itself back into a thin line again. "I couldn't return with what I'd done so I went to hunt down my father, who she mentioned. A scientist by name of Merlot."

"And that's where you've been?"

"Yes." He gave me a charming smile. I had to admit he looked good. The sick bastard. I raised my weapon anyways. He lifted his hands in surrender. "I don't want to fight you."

"His semblance isn't disappearing." Blake whispered to me.

"I know," I muttered back. "Will you come with us?" I asked my voice louder.

"If I can remain armed, sure," Jaune agreed. "I refuse to be separated from my weapons."

"No chance," Blake said.

"Hmm, what if I give you the relic." He proffered it out with one hand and sheathed his weapon over his shoulder with the other.

"We have to take the deal." I told Blake. "Nothing is more important than the relic."

I could tell she didn't like it. She still saw Jaune as being like Adam. But if what he told us was true then he was a victim. Salem could control his thoughts. That didn't make him any less dangerous, though. It meant this whole thing could be a trap. I just couldn't see how. Or what Salem would gain by giving up a relic.

"Weiss get down!" Winter came striding over my head on a wave of glyphs and pierced right at Jaune's head with her scimitar.

She must have been listening to our mics the whole time.

Jaune leaned out of the way, grabbed Winter and kicked her twice in the chest in a sort of rolling motion with each leg. The strength of the blows made Winter's eyes widen and it left her in the air above Jaune. The last place you ever wanted to be.

Like lightning Jaune drew the white and bronze broadsword with one hand. He cast the blade upwards slashing her and kept her above him before he jumped and hit Winter in the gut with the long blade.

She tried to land but he hovered beneath her. He was ungodly fast. The only other people I'd met in his category for speed with his semblance active were Harriet and Ruby.

"Winter!" I called out.

He jumped and shattered a glyph my sister tried to stand on and he flicked her with his blade into the ground hard enough to tear the street up. He drifted slowly to the ground from there on a pocket of air.

"Winter don't! He's coming in peacefully!" I called out.

She whipped back to her feet and eyed Jaune. He offered her the long hilt of his nearly seven foot weapon. A calm and disarming smirk was on his face.

"He's not behaving peacefully."

"Neither are you," I pointed out. "Just take his weapon."

"He needs to be put in cuffs. He's a criminal."

"Why? He's got the relic of knowledge, he's not on their side."

Winter's eyes flicked down to his belt where the relic hung.

"Weiss… help me secure him."

"Winter!"

"That's an order!"

She rushed him before I could give her a warning. Jaune backed up hopping out of the way of her slashes before he brought his enormous weapon around. Then he started to meet Winter's slashes with equal speed despite the sheer size of his weapon and her small lithe ones.

Winter sliced high then she thrust middle and then she went for his head again. He blocked them all and at a range such that my sister never really got close to him.

He barked out a deep part mad laugh.

He slashed forward at my sister forcing her to block the gigantic attack and then he kneed her in the face hard enough to smash her into a brick wall.

Blake rushed him before I could stop her. She tried to backflip over him and bring her ribbon down around him but he just flipped in place and slashed at her.

She disappeared with a clone, it exploded into fire which washed over him. He flinched back and flickered back a step. Blake kept up with him for a moment and vanished again in a clone when he cut at her. He read her and whipped around right in Blake's face and spent Limit on her in a rush.

_Thud-thud. _He hit her with two horizontal slashes. _Dush-dush. _He hit her with two diagonal cuts from opposite directions that left her spiraling in place. _Thud-dush. _He bit into her aura with a horizontal then a diagonal slash. _Thud-thud. _He swept vertically upwards then did a massive overhead strike downwards on her trapped form.

The expenditure turned almost violet by the end of the terrifying eight cut attack that intercepted her in mid-air.

Blake bounced off the ground and tried to rise but her aura crackled purple and she fell back to her knees. Just like that she was out of the fight.

Then Jaune just stood there flexing in the middle of the street.

I rushed him and he met me. He pressed down on me with his giant weapon. He held it diagonally downwards with the tip pointed at the ground and the great hilt up high, held in one hand. I could barely leverage Myrtenaster to keep him off of me. Compared to the broadsword Myrtenaster looked like a twig. Sparks flew as his weapon sung with energy.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered, his voice still smouldered. "Surrender to me."

I backed off a step and he let me. He pointed his weapon at me with one hand, the other hung loosely by his side.

My sister pulled herself free and her aura washed over her in a wave of white.

"Winter stop it! You can't beat him!"

She ignored me and thrust her saber into the ground. A Beowulf in all white and blue appeared and rushed Jaune. He hovered straight towards it and cut through it with two horizontal strikes. He was flying even without his Limit Breaker now?

Just how strong had he become?

My sister chased her summon with incredible speed but she couldn't close the gap on him. His blade swiped through the air as he met her strikes with confidence. It seemed to hum with barely constrained power.

He jumped and as he fell he bench pressed the enormous weapon and caught my sister in the chest. Then he twirled through the air and did a vertical low to high strike which flung her back.

He landed neatly and flexed in a position I knew meant he was charging his semblance.

He Cross-Slashed her when she next tried to approach him. He just caught her with wide terrific swings of his sword. He twirled and the last blow flung her back with her aura swirling around her. Deep chunks had been taken out of it. There was a rush of air and his semblance was charged again. He was taking her apart.

My sister tried to rise to her feet but he was on her in a blur that shoved her back to the ground. He leveraged his mighty weapon down on her and it was all she could do to maintain her kneeling position.

She popped the hidden blade out of her scimitar and tried to catch it with her left. Instead Jaune's hand blurred in between their guards, lightning fast, and caught the weapon. He stepped in and dragged her to her feet with the hidden stiletto forced against her neck.

Both of her hands came up to relieve the pressure against her throat as he held her above the ground. She kicked him in the chest hard but it was to no avail. He didn't even flinch at the blow. He wrestled her into the air, holding her by the blade against her throat and against his own titanic weapon.

"Jaune wait! You said you wanted to come in. Now's the time to prove it. Put her down," I begged him. I was all but certain I couldn't take him. He'd turned Blake aside easily and he'd hammered my sister without any trial.

He looked at me. Through swirls of light the same hue as his eyes. Then he tossed Winter to the side. Both of her weapons clattered to the asphalt.

Winter choked and tried to regain her breath.

Jaune stabbed his sword into the ground and held out his hands to be cuffed. "It's alright. I'll go in."

"Without your weapon?" Blake asked. She'd gotten back to her feet and she had her gun pointed at his head. Jaune didn't look intimidated by it in the slightest.

Jaune noticeably cringed at the thought of being weaponless but he said, "even so."

Winter slapped a pair of handcuffs on him and he visibly relaxed and let the blue aura around him fade. I wouldn't have been surprised if he could tear the handcuffs apart with an expenditure of his semblance. Winter ripped the relic of knowledge from his belt and secured it to her own side.

"Sorry Jaune," I said. I meant it, too.

"It'll be fine. I think I have friends on the inside."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was there when Jaune was searched. He was armed with dust crystals (red, yellow and purple), a pipe, a grinder, a scroll, and a little black book. They were all placed in a grey bin and put before the General who tried to stare Jaune down.

Jaune didn't look impressed.

The General looked through Jaune's things before he asked him any questions.

"I'm told you came in of your volition."

"That's right."

"Why now?"

"Maybe I need serious help. Maybe I'm losing my mind."

"Can you tell me what happened at Haven Mr. Arc? Or do you prefer Strife?"

"You know me?" Jaune sounded surprised. "Either is fine. Mother, that is Salem, gave me orders through her Grimm, and I had to obey them. I killed Ren and Nora. She ordered me to bring her the relic but I soon broke her command over my mind."

"She can control your thoughts? Why?"

"I was created from her cells by Merlot, do you know of him?"

"I do," Ozpin murmured off to Ironwood's side. "He conducted experiments on the Grimm."

"That's right. After Haven I went and found the lab where he made me. That little black book is his notes on it. On me."

"And the relic of knowledge?" Ozpin asked.

"I kept it safe but didn't bring it to her."

"He was going to offer it to us," I cut in.

"Is this true, Ms. Belladonna?" Ozpin asked.

"It is. He didn't want to fight us. He wanted to be able to keep his weapon."

"Absolutely not." Ironwood leaned back. "By his own admission he's in league with the enemy."

"Really James? By my estimation he's a victim in all this. Any of Salem's other agents would have brought her the relic. Mr. Arc how are you feeling?"

"I'm alright at the moment. I hear her voice sometimes. It's a whisper. And ever since that day I see shadows and I have the feeling of bugs crawling around my skin."

"You need therapy," Ozpin said.

"There isn't a shrink qualified. There's a goddess in my head. That's what the marijuana is for." Jaune nodded at the pipe and grinder. I picked it up and sniffed it. I detected the earthly odor of marijuana coming off of it. "In fact I could really use a hit right about now," he said.

"Really Jaune? Marijuana?" I asked.

"It helps with mother's voice. Salem's voice. I meant Salem. I hear her in my dreams."

"Well Mr. Arc, having the relic speaks well for you. I also take it you were the one who killed Tyrian. We found his body. His wounds may have been consistent with your weapon."

"Thank you. And yes I did." There was a note of pride in his voice. "I killed the motherfucker."

"And your story with Merlot is very concerning. Well what do you think James? The final say of what happens to him is in your hands."

Ironwood was quiet for a long time, he didn't like it. Jaune was dangerous. He was a liability. Further still he was a criminal. I held my breath.

"I'm confiscating your weapon. I'm keeping you imprisoned until such a time that you can see a psychiatrist and we can start you on some medication. It's in your best interest that you not resist. You should comply completely. I'm putting you down for PTSD with major psychotic features."

"Will I be able to see my friends?"

Ironwood nodded. "I'd also like a blood sample for my own labs."

"For Salem's genes. I understand. I'll play ball." Jaune agreed. "Think we can get these handcuffs off and that book back? It's a touch personal. It's literally all I have of my origins."

Ironwood nodded again and gestured to Winter. She released him and Jaune rubbed his wrists. Jaune paced forward and snatched up his black book and shoved it in a pocket. Other than that he tried nothing and I lunged forward and embraced him. I could have kissed him in that moment.

"It'll be okay Jaune," I whispered.

"We'll see," he murmured.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I came to Ruby with the news in our room. "Ruby, we found Jaune!" She deserved to hear it from me and I wanted to be the one to share it with her. Lest she hear it from another source and get the facts wrong. I may have been in a bit of a rush to reach our Atlas Academy room with Blake in tow.

"What? Where?"

"Blake and I were on stakeout and he turned up. They're putting him in a psychiatric hospital. He's… he's pretty messed up."

"So is he… was he a traitor?"

"Kind of. According to him Salem made him do it. She was able to control his mind. She made him kill Ren and Nora."

Ruby looked like she had no idea how to feel. "Will we be able to see him?"

"General Ironwood said so but I don't know what it'll look like." I wasn't sure what the protocols were in place to see someone who was sick like Jaune was. He was also a criminal. So there was that to consider.

"Weiss this is the best news!" She hugged me and I held her back. "My Jaune is safe!" She kissed my cheek and I smiled. I knew that his whereabouts had been eating her up inside.

"Come on, Weiss," Blake said. "He outright told us Salem could control his mind. You think she's not doing it right now? Even if we believe him, which I'm not sure we should, it's still a pretty bleak scenario."

"He had the relic. And they said they'd find him medication," I argued.

"For mind control?" Blake asked. "Weiss please be reasonable. Don't get her hopes up. This isn't the kind of thing that gets better. This is permanent. Whatever's wrong with him is for keeps. And that's if we're taking him at his word."

"Medication?" Ruby wondered.

"He explained it like he had a bunch of psychotic phenomena from what Salem did to him. It sounded a lot like extreme PTSD." I explained to Ruby. "And why shouldn't I have hope for him. He made it this far without giving in."

Blake just shook her head.

"Wait hold on, take it from the top," Yang said. "Salem has control over his mind? Why? How?"

"He says he was created in a petri dish from her cells, someone named Merlot made him in a laboratory," Blake said. "That's why he's doomed. And that's if we believe him."

"I thought you of all people would judge someone by how they act, not where they came from," I snapped at Blake.

She snarled at me. "He killed Ren and Nora, that's how he acted. Am I the only one who is forgetting that? He confessed to their murder. Right in front of the two of us."

"Alright, that's enough you two," Yang shouted. "If you can't be civil, shut up! Now, if you can, go on. How was he, though?"

"He seemed sane enough." I shrugged. "He was level headed the entire time we were taking him into custody. He even surrendered himself."

"'Sane enough,' would you listen to how you sound?"

"Blake!" Yang shouted.

"Yang, Jaune is not okay. And he's much more powerful than any of you really let on. He basically one-shot my aura to zero and he was talking about hearing her voice all the time. He kept calling Salem mother. He's a time bomb."

"But Jaune's family isn't like that. He talked about it a little," Ruby muttered. "Does he still have sisters or was that not real?" It was a good question. Jaune had a history of what he said at Beacon and to Ruby. What if it was accurate. Could all of that have been fake pressure from Salem?

"None of us know. He didn't talk about it," Blake answered.

"If he does then what does that mean?" Ruby asked. She shifted uncomfortably. "More Salem clones? Is that even the right word?"

"Jaune can't be a clone of her. He's a guy," Yang said.

I nodded. "Something else is going on. He had a little black book filled with Merlot's notes on his creation. Maybe Jaune knows more."

"And he was with Neapolitan. Cloud Strife is working with her. She nearly killed Yang!"

"He was what?" Yang asked. "Why?"

"We didn't get the chance to have an in depth chat with him. But he had the relic. He turned himself in to get help."

"All of this is good news," Ruby agreed. "Well not all of it, but a bit."

"You two would say that!" Blake accused. "You can't see what he is because the two of you are in love with him!" I glared at her. I would never bring up how her and Yang felt like it was an insult. I didn't deny it, though, it wouldn't do me any good. Instead I listened to her make her point.

"I can't believe this! He's like a monster. He threw me and Weiss's older sister around like it was nothing. Did you not see him fling her? Did you watch him choking her out? Did you see him floating there? He could have destroyed her. He's unbelievably powerful and from what you guys tell me his power is about getting stronger. And no one knows what will set him off," Blake finished.

"So what should we do, Blake? Kill him?" I asked. I dropped the hammer on her. It seemed to be the end goal of what she was suggesting. I'd taken her insult on the nose and come out the other side clean. So what if I liked him. It didn't change the facts about it. Jaune was hurting.

Silence reigned. Blake looked away from me, her ears down.

"What if he is innocent? What if he is a victim? What then?" I demanded. I needed to know what she was intending. I was sure it was also on the General and Ozpin's mind.

"No one wants to kill Jaune, right?" Ruby asked. She sounded nervous.

"I swear the General thought about it. He wasn't really sure what to do. Ozpin wasn't either," I answered fast. Ruby needed to know the details. She deserved to know. Of everyone she was closest to Jaune.

"We can't let them do that," Ruby said, she sounded determined.

"What if it's the right call?" Yang asked. "What if Salem is in control."

"Then he wouldn't have brought us the relic. He would have brought it to her." I responded. "He also took responsibility for Tyrian."

"I suppose…" Yang trailed. She looked deep in thought. I wondered if I'd be able to convince her onto our side.

"Yang?" Ruby wondered.

"What? I have no idea what to think, but Blake is right. The two of you aren't exactly unbiased. None of you have gone toe to toe with him like I have, except maybe Weiss a little but he was winning those fairly confidently. He hits harder than our uncle does. Maybe he was hitting harder than I did, back then. Maybe I won by a nose hair and it was because just maybe he let it happen. And he was only getting stronger. According to him he killed Tyrian who was a menace and did you see him fight Cinder? He could have won that fight and she's a fucking maiden."

She was even two maidens now. As far as Cinder was concerned things weren't looking good.

"Salem and Ozpin have magic, that's where the maidens came from. Do you think he's got magic, too?" Ruby asked. "Do you think maybe that's why he's so strong?"

"Maybe. Probably." Yang answered. "He's really really dangerous. And Blake's right we have no idea what will set him off."

"Thank you," Blake said.

"But," Yang drew out. "We can't kill an innocent man. He had the relic that means he can at least resist Salem, right? It's not a free win for her."

"He didn't say how he broke her spell. Just that he did." I returned. "He's being evaluated by a psychiatrist as we speak."

"He's mad. Did you listen to his symptoms? Salem is driving him mad," Blake said. "He's not even safe in his dreams."

Blake had a point. Salem was driving him crazy. It sounded very unpleasant, what all he was going through. But he'd made it this far so I still had hope for him yet. He was able to resist her. He was strong enough to overcome whatever Salem was doing to him, then. I had to believe that. I wanted to believe that. Was it so wrong to believe that?

"Then we'll just have to keep him safe in his real life, right?" Ruby asked. No one truly had an answer for her.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	66. Memories

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

_It was one of those old crush dreams. It had Weiss in it and she was wearing her old Beacon era outfit so I knew it was fake. That it was a dream. That it wasn't real. It put the dream in that odd category of semi-lucid. _

_I was dealing with the Boarbatusk in Ports's old classroom. I was using my old sword. I felt small as I fought it. _

_"Save that kid!" Weiss shouted down at me. It was disorientating like she was shouting through molasses. "Jaune, save him."_

_I turned away from where she was alone in the seats calling to me. There was this kid down in the pit with me. I couldn't make out his face. It was that kind of dream. Colors blurred and I slew the professor's Boarbatusk. _

_Instead of dissolving into ash it turned into a matted mess of worms and centipedes. They overran the kid who called out something as a centipede slid over his wrists and locked tight. _

_I took a step forward but my legs got wrapped up by one of the Grimm worms. Where it wrapped over my flesh the slime it left behind stung me. _

_A centipede wrapped around both my wrists and locked tight. It looked at me. It made a smug, Grimm face at me. _

_I tried to scream as the bugs ran over my body. _

I woke up trying to scream but it only came out as a meek groan. I couldn't move and my wrists and legs still burned where the bugs had touched me.

I was awake enough to know what I was going through. Sleep paralysis, they called it. I drooled on myself a little and couldn't shut my mouth as I lay in the cot they'd stuck me in.

I waited and eventually I was able to move again. I sat up. An orderly came by in the hospital. They had to check on us every thirty minutes just in case one of us tried to commit suicide. That was the kind of ward I was stuck in. It seriously sucked.

I stood up, tired of being watched from the doorway when the nurses came by. They hadn't taken my armor or my huntsman clothes. That told me that they wanted me comfortable. Just so long as I wasn't dangerous.

I was still dangerous. I had my gods damn semblance. Nothing could take that from me.

I striped the clothes off and hung it all next to the sink as I stepped into the in suite shower and washed myself down. I felt fucking disgusting and my dream had left me shaking. My wrists and legs burned still.

Sleep didn't even hit the same anymore.

I couldn't trust it. I couldn't trust in my mind while I rested. I wasn't allowed to rest. It fucking sucked. Plus they took my weed from me and I hadn't had the chance to talk to a doctor who could prescribe something real for me.

All I had was reality. Cold and sober even in the hot shower. At least Neo could bust me out anytime I wanted, basically. They'd taken my scroll too so I couldn't call her but she'd be around. I might just take her up on it, too.

They had me locked in this place. This hospital had us under watch from the doorways at all times even through the night so my rest wouldn't have been restful even if I didn't have the nightmares.

I scrubbed at my eyes hard and thought about the people I was doing this for. Ruby. Weiss. Yang. Blake. My old friends. I had to give this a try otherwise I was a coward. Otherwise I wanted to be sick.

I picked at the inside of my ear as I stood in the shower. I could feel things crawling around beneath my skin. The shower water pounded against the ground and with it came the whispering sound of Mother's voice.

_Come to me… lend me your strength…_

I shuddered.

_I have a favor to ask you, child. Run. Run away. _

I wanted to slam my head into the shower tile wall. I hosed myself off with the little soaps they'd provided me and tried to relax as best as I could. It wasn't working so great. I wanted to hurt myself. I wanted to smoke. I wanted to die. I wanted to see my friends.

My feelings were all bottled and mixed up into a hue of utter nothingness.

It was still fairly late and I was sure I wouldn't get any more sleep tonight. Nothing good would happen to my thoughts if I did. That was when she got me. While I was sleeping I was _vulnerable_ to her.

I was so fucking unsafe and had been for a long time. A month or more. Ever since that day I'd murdered my own friends nothing had gone my way. The things I'd learned about myself only dragged me down.

I hated it. I hated being alive. For the thousandth time I cursed Merlot who'd doomed me to this existence without a care in the world. My creator… I would make him pay. He would suffer for bringing me into this world and dooming me to be tortured so. I could feel her fingers on the surface of my mind.

They were surgical and touched me so gently but they were there, digging deep into my thoughts like tentacles. It would feel so good to give in to them. It could be everything I ever wanted.

"Mr. Arc? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," I called out to the nurse outside of the bathroom. "I'm the same as I've always been," I whispered in a quieter tone.

I could get through this. I was a hunter damnit. That meant something to me.

_Does it?_

The voice questioning me was my own. And it had a good point. All my dreams about being a hunter were fake. It was as fake as my name. It was given to me by an alien goddess.

My dreams were dead. My hopes were dead. My faith was dead.

She was working her way into me. She was breaking me down. I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep it up. It felt like water against a rock. Eventually it would erode. Except the rock was my mind. It was my psyche pit against hers.

"Can I get you anything Mr. Arc?"

"Something to help me relax and sleep?" I asked back.

"Just a moment." The male nurse walked away. He came back and placed a pill on a counter. "It's Clonazepam, just let it dissolve under your tongue. It should help with anxiety and sleep."

"Thanks," I breathed.

I stepped out of the shower and dried off. I savored the rough feel of the towel against my skin. The cloth was low quality and boy it felt good. I took the pill and let it dissolve under my tongue. It was incredibly sweet to the taste. I swallowed.

I immediately felt a little more relaxed but it was a bit more relaxed about being mind raped. There was only so much the drugs could do, surely. I was in it for real and I was in deep.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"So tell me about what brings you in here Mr. Arc." My counselor was a woman. Middling height with brown hair and green eyes. She looked trustworthy. A strong jaw and high cheek bones made her classically good looking, too. She was maybe fifty, maybe a bit older. She didn't have the good looks of a hunter, though.

Dr. Caulbaugh was her name. And after a short introduction I was supposed to share with her my deepest darkest secrets. It was necessary for this thing to work.

"The general didn't tell you anything?" I asked. We were locked alone in a room. If I so chose I could rip her in half. Probably not a good sign that I was thinking like that. But I was.

"No, he didn't. It's up to you what you share with me. But the more honest you can be the better we can make things for you." She smiled at me and picked a pen at the corner of her mouth. An actual pen as opposed to a data pad.

"And you work with hunters?" I asked.

"Primarily. My background is in trauma victims. The overlap, I think, would surprise you." Not really. As far as trauma went hunters had to be up there. Between killing people and watching their friends die day in and day out there was a lot of trauma to be had. I maybe knew a thing or two about that.

I nodded and flushed out my half cape in the chair. I swept it behind me."That's why you lot let me keep my armor and clothes."

"Hunters are more comfortable in their wear. And armor isn't exactly a threat." She smiled again, trying to disarm me. That's the real reason she let me keep my cloak, armor, and clothes. That's the real reason I wasn't in a gown.

I kept nodding anyway.

"Please, tell me about yourself, Mr. Arc."

"My father was a test tube and my 'mother,'" I gave the word quotation marks. "Was an incubator. I was created in a laboratory by a scientist named Merlot from the genetic material of a woman named Salem. My other mother."

"You're serious?" Her jaw dropped a little. It shouldn't have been outside the range of possibility. Especially in a technophilic place like Atlas.

I nodded again.

"Okay." She started writing.

"I'm biologically twenty but I'm chronological three or four."

"Oh my gods." She swore a little. She seemed a little shocked. I had been too, though. So there was that.

"Yeah. I joined Beacon academy when I was 'seventeen.' I was there when the academy went down. My partner was killed in the action. Her name was Pyrrha."

"Okay." She murmured scrawling at her clipboard.

"I killed for the first time maybe nine months after that. I just ripped this bandit in half."

"How many people have you killed?"

"I've lost count. Maybe a hundred. Maybe more," I confessed. "A lot of people."

"Okay. Alright." She kept writing frantically. "You're very young to have such a high body count."

"You've met four year olds with a higher body count than me?" I laughed.

"N-no." She mumbled. She picked the pen at the corner of her mouth. A nervous habit, maybe.

"Sorry. Bad joke."

"No, please go on."

"I was there when Haven was attacked. A month ago or so. Not sure if you heard about it."

"I hadn't…"

"I'm sure some details are classified. But while I was there my Mother, Salem took control over my mind. She made me kill two of my friends."

"You mean, like with a semblance?"

"Kinda," I shrugged. "I bet details about my Mother are classified above top secret. I'm sure I can't share much with you."

"That's alright."

"And ever since then I've had tactile, visual, and auditory hallucinations. I hear her voice. I see shadows. I feel bugs crawling around in my face and in my eyes."

"I see. I see. Then what happened after Haven?"

"I found my 'father's' laboratory. That's where I learned the truth about me. I had fake memories, you see. Then I came here."

"From Mistral?"

"I snuck into the country. Report me."

"I'm not going to report you."

"I was so worried you would," I said facetiously. "So what do you think, doc? Do I have PTSD?"

"Almost certainly," she was still writing very quickly. "Mr. Arc you have quite the tale to tell."

"Do I make your list of top ten weirdest patients or what?"

"You just might." She laughed. "Have you ever tried to take your own life?"

"Just after I killed my friends at Haven I tried to kill myself."

"What happened?"

"Couldn't focus. My aura wouldn't let me." I squeezed a fist as I recalled the memory. I inhaled deeply and tried to relax like I was about to try it again now.

"I see. I want to run through some mood scales with you. Is that alright?"

"Sure." I shrugged. I had no idea what those were.

"Now I want you to tell me if you've experienced these things over the past month. If you've experienced it all of the days, most of the days, half of the days, a few of the days, or none of the days."

"Shoot."

"Feeling down, depressed or hopeless?" She asked.

"All of the days."

"Feeling like a failure, like you've let yourself down?" She went on.

"All of the days. My father classified me as a failure of an experiment, even."

"Feeling like you'd be better off dead or having thoughts of hurting yourself." She was unrelenting.

"All of the days."

"Poor appetite or the reverse, over eating."

"A few of the days."

"Poor sleep or the opposite, getting too much sleep."

"All of the days."

"Which one?"

"I have nightmares from Mother. I can't sleep. I'm even afraid of sleeping. She _gets_ me while I sleep."

She wrote notes on her clipboard. "How have you been sleeping since you arrived?"

"Poorly."

"Okay, I'll prescribe you something for that. Next scale. Moving too slow, to the point someone would have noticed or the opposite, being more fidgety than usual."

"None of the days."

"Fear or worrying about a great many subjects."

"All of the days."

"Well Mr. Arc…"

"What? Never had a mind controlled patient before?"

"I can't say that I have. It seems to me you don't believe I'll be able to treat you."

"That's because I'm not actually crazy. I have someone else in my head."

"I don't think you're crazy Mr. Arc. That's not what PTSD is. I'm going to get you started on some of our atypical antipsychotics. They'll help stabilize your mood and you should notice the effects immediately."

"Which one?"

"It's called Asenapine. Have you heard of it?" She asked.

"No." I shook my head. I hadn't heard of any of the medications. I was no expert. My brain was in this woman's hands. I had to just trust her.

"Well it should help stabilize you. I want to run a genetics test on you to see which medications you'll respond best to in the meantime."

"I'm willing to bet my genetics are classified."

"Because of your origin?"

"Yeah. Because of my creation."

"Well I'll see about getting through on those. In the meantime I'm keeping you on Clonazepam and Asenapine."

"And you think that'll help?"

"Well it's not an exact science but we should be able to find a medication combination that works for you," she returned.

"We'll see, doc. I'm told you're who I should talk to about being released. About getting my weapon back, too."

"You hunters are all about getting your weapons. You're not ready to leave here, Mr. Arc. I'm putting you in for a three day hold."

"Three days?"

"Three days minimum. It's my professional opinion that you need serious help. You don't need a weapon in your hands right now."

"I could be doing real serious good. I could be saving lives."

"You could also be taking them."

"That's the job. That's what hunters are for. Let alone what I am for. I was _made _to kill people."

"You mentioned your friends. What were their names?"

"Ren and Nora." She looked over her board at me, looking deadly serious.

"Unless you want there to be more like that you'll remain calm and go through the therapies I recommend."

"Very well."

"You still seem doubtful. That sort of obstinacy is counter productive to your treatment. A large part of it is your belief."

"I'm being mind controlled. There's no cure for that. And the things I am? Where I came from? That shit's permanent."

"This mind control event is where your psychosis started? It's why you resorted to marijuana?"

"Yes. That's right."

"Then let us help you Mr. Arc. This isn't forever. You'll be back out in the field. It's my firm belief that your stay here is temporary. Have faith in the treatments. I think we can make some serious progress with your psychosis."

"I agreed to this in the first place."

"Then have faith. You're not doomed, Mr. Arc."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	67. Flower Girl VII

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I brushed a comb through my hair. I wanted to look at least decent for when I saw Jaune again. What? Just because I could bullseye you from a thousand yards doesn't mean I didn't like girly stuff. One of those things was looking nice for my boyfriend when I visited him in a military psychiatric hospital.

I grinned wolfishly at the mirror. I didn't have a lot of hair to comb through like Yang or Weiss but I had enough to drag a brush through and make it look a bit neater. Speaking of Weiss came by and leaned at the corner of the wall in the bathroom. Her hair was still down and not up in its braided ponytail. I turned away from the mirror to actually look at her.

"What?" She asked. She looked beautiful with her hair down but she probably wasn't planning on coming to see Jaune like that. It just wasn't in the cards for her.

"You're not coming with me to see Jaune?" I shot back.

"He likes you, remember?"

"He liked you first," I retorted. "All freshman year, remember?"

She sighed. "I don't want to overwhelm him. He's probably going through a lot as it is. He doesn't need whatever is going on with me to add to that." She waved a hand at herself.

"That you like him," I cut through.

"Yes, Ruby. That I like him." She sounded a touch exasperated.

"Don't you want to tell him how you feel?" I asked.

"I-I suppose..."

"Come on. Let me do your hair." I guided her in and sat her down by the bath and ran my fingers against her scalp. She sighed back into my touch and I let a grin stretch my face. I started to do up her enormous plait.

"It's just so confusing."

"No it's not," I said. "The only thing left to see is if you like him back. And you flirted with him occasionally in Mistral."

"In Mistral…" she repeated. "I just don't want to confuse him."

"But what if you don't have the chance to tell him how you feel again. Think about how stressed you were before you told me how you felt."

"Ruby…"

"You don't want to let this opportunity slide by, even if he's stressed out it's not like having you like him will make things worse."

"Easy enough for you to say. You've already slept with him. And I've already kissed you. It's fairly clear we both like you while it's not so clear that he and I would work out."

"I've just slept with him twice."

"Just twice you say. Forgive me. I didn't mean to blow it out of proportion," she said sarcastically.

I kissed her on the lips with a bit of passion before I went back to doing her braid. "It'll be alright."

"And you're okay with all this? Sharing him? Sharing me?"

"Of course." I was raised by Yang so maybe my view of love was more relaxed than Weiss's. She was raised up here in Atlas where things were more strict. To me, love was love. It was about sharing and being shared. Nothing about this was crazy to me. I liked what I liked what I liked. And I wanted it, too. "You're alright with sharing me with him."

"W-well yes," she agreed.

"Then don't worry about it. You're stressing way too much."

"But what if he says no."

"Why would he say no? He flirted back with you in Mistral if what you told me is true. He had a crush on you first. Even before all that business with Pyrrha happened. So why would he say no?"

"What if he wants to be monogamous with you. What if he's not poly." Weiss came out and said it. The big humdinger.

"Then why would he have flirted with you in Mistral?" I countered.

She sat in silence while I did her plait. I bobby pinned it up as I worked my hands through her long beautiful hair. I squealed a little and wanted to squeeze my face into the silky mass.

"We just need to be open with him. He'll understand. I'm fairly certain he won't be upset that another beautiful girl loves him. He'll probably just be like 'I hate myself and I don't deserve it.' He's like that a bit. We just need to shut that down."

"You've thought about this a lot," she accused.

"Not really," I responded. "That's just how he is, he loathes himself, sometimes. And it's how we could be. All together. I love you Weiss. And I love him. What's wrong with that? What's complicated about that?"

"It's just a whole person to be added to the mix. And you weren't ready before."

"But I promised you I would be ready eventually."

"And that's now?"

"Yes. I'm fairly fast, in case you haven't noticed. It helps that I have him back. I was worried about him. He was alone stewing in whatever happened to him for real. He was off dealing with Salem's mind control by himself, even if we didn't know about it yet. But that's over now. We're going to keep him safe, you and me."

"You make it sound so easy. It's not. It's three people. All with their own desires. That's about as complicated as it gets. Plus you have no idea how to help with the mind control piece."

"You're stressing about nothing until we talk to him."

"It has been a long time…"

"Just a month or so," I returned. "That's less time than you spent with him in Mistral."

"You're too excited for this."

"Why wouldn't I be excited? I get to be with both my best friends."

"If he likes me back," Weiss amended.

"You're still worried about that?"

"It's kind of a big hang up, Ruby."

"He likes you. I promise. What's not to like about you?"

"I'm uptight. I worry too much. I'm an overthinker."

"Now you sound like Jaune did before he admitted we were a couple. Maybe I've got a type." I sighed.

"Jaune and I aren't that similar," she protested. "That's kind of what I'm worried about."

"You're both overthinkers. You're both super smart," I disagreed. "You have more in common than you think, Weiss. I think so, at least."

"Really? I always thought he was a bit like you, Ruby."

"Impatient?" I asked.

"Energetic and a touch clumsy," she corrected, a small smile quirking her pink lips.

"Huh," was all I could manage. We sat in relative quiet as I worked for a moment. She hummed back into my touch. She had a lovely singing voice. I could stand to hear it more.

"And now that he's got that real confidence behind him I always thought he was… well you know."

"Hot?" I asked. He was a little.

"You see it too, then."

"You should just wait until he kisses you. Now that's hot."

I watched Weiss rub her legs together a little. "And you're alright with that? You'd be onboard with me kissing him."

"For the hundredth time, yes!" I wanted to shake some sense into her. They were both my best friends. I wanted to share them. "It's not so complicated. It's just one more person, like you keep saying."

To be honest the thought of watching Weiss and Jaune kiss was about the hottest thing I'd thought of in a bit. It made me shudder a little.

"We should see how he is first. He might not be in the best place mentally for it."

"But when he's ready we'll snatch him up, you and me."

She wrapped a hand over my neck and turned me to kiss her. Her tongue dove forward a little and I let it into my mouth. I moaned into the kiss. It felt like everything was going to be okay. For the first time in a long time I really felt it.

"Weiss…" I whimpered. "I need to finish your braid…"

"What's the hold up?" She whispered against my lips. "Are you distracted?" She teased me.

I whined a little and clenched at her hair with both hands. She groaned a little as I pulled gently on her platinum threads.

"Maybe a little." I confessed, desperately. "Let me finish!"

She turned back away from me with her face pink. She was breathing hard enough to make her chest heave. For all my sister's teasing about Weiss's modest chest size, I liked it. Her breasts swelled up at me as she panted from our long kiss.

She was only in her morning wear so I thought I could see the tips of her breasts hardened in the early yellow light. I was no better with my heart beating fast, hammering away in my chest at my ribs. The way she made me whine was enormously domineering.

It was so unbelievably attractive.

I desperately tried to remember where my fingers were and finish up her braid. My hands were trembling more than a little. I slowly got my breathing back under control. My face was as red as my cape in the mirror.

It took a moment to get myself under my own command but eventually I succeeded.

A knock came by the open door. I turned to see my older sister. "Yang?" I asked. I put the last tie in Weiss's plait. "Are you coming to see Jaune too?"

"Yeah, Blake and I both are. I talked her into it. Jaune turned himself and the relic in. That counts for something."

"Thank you Yang." Weiss tucked her hair behind her shoulder and stood up. "I was worried that this would divide us."

"Yeah well it still might," Yang said. "Jaune is a criminal now. Plus he was working with Neapolitan. He better have a good reason for that. For both those things. Let's be honest, I want Jaune on our side, his power and strength are awesome, but I don't know if I can trust him. Especially with the mind control stuff."

I sighed and nodded. I was grateful for Yang coming at us honest. I was willing to bet the reason was good enough for Jaune, but would Yang agree? I wasn't sure.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Jaune looked good. Tall with little blue diamond piercings like his eyes. His hair was done up in a spiky messy fashion that made him look dashing. His armor was under black clothes and he had a touch of red where Pyrrha's sash was tied to his arm and he had this little half cape to him too that made his silhouette look slick.

None of the others had brought up his outfit change. It hadn't been as important as other topics but it was there and Jaune looked good-enough-to-eat in his git-up. And if I had it my way I would.

He sat down with us just at a table within the hospital behind double locked doors like an airlock. Someone would have to let us out and the double doors ensured that none of the patients could escape, should they try.

"Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang." He nodded with a charming smile. "It's good to see you again."

"Jaune." I embraced him deeply. His wide frame wrapped me up easily. I inhaled his familiar smell wildly. Crisp spice and something else, something torched.

I had missed him. It dragged tears from my eyes which I wiped away.

"How are they treating you in here," Weiss asked.

Jaune waggled a hand. "Eh. About as good as I could reasonably expect considering the liability I constitute. If I meant business, I'm not sure that those doors could stop me."

He'd probably been analyzing the exits. It was instinct for a hunter like him. He was trapped and he knew it. But he was trapped by his own code as much or more so than the actual doors.

"Jaune you have to tell us everything. What happened to you?" I asked. "What happened at Haven?"

"I killed Ren and Nora. Salem made me do it but I still killed them," he confessed. "She then called me to bring the relic to her. I… I know where she is. At all times. It's like an instinct. I can feel her."

"Are they giving you medication for that?" Weiss asked.

"They're trying to bring my psychosis under control. They have no idea how to deal with the Salem stuff."

"But they're related. Salem's causing it," Blake said.

"That's right. I'm skeptical about any treatment they give me. They're giving me all kinds of sedatives to relax me and they've got me on antipsychotics." He leaned back in his seat and kept one arm around me. "Propanalol and Clonazepam to help relax and then something called Asenapine for the delusions and hallucinations."

"Is it working?" Yang asked.

He shook his head. "It's too early to tell."

"But you don't think it will." Blake murmured. "You think what Salem's doing to you can't be cured."

"Right. I'm being mind raped." He had a lazy half smile. He looked consigned.

I flinched a little. And Weiss shuffled slightly in her blue and silver outfit. She rubbed one arm with the other.

"You're not being mind raped." I said. "Right?"

"She sends me nightmares and I have to deal with her hallucinations. She's attacking me all the time. It's… it's a lot to deal with."

"But you're fighting. You can resist her," Yang said.

"I'm not sure. If I hear her voice again for real I'm afraid I'll have to obey her. That's what happened last time."

"But so long as you don't hear her real voice you're alright. You're safe." I tried to confirm.

"Maybe. It's a struggle to not give in to her whispers. I hear it all the time."

"You said that you were using Marijuana to help with that. Are you still?" Weiss asked.

"They took that away from me. I'm lucky I'm in a hospital and not behind bars."

"You attacked Atlas. Set some prisoners lose when you were Cloud Strife." Yang murmured. "Burned down a building and did worse besides."

"I was working for an information broker in the city. I was looking for the maiden here. I found out that your sister, Weiss, visits the same bunker every day. Ever since Beacon fell. I'm betting the maiden is there, Tyrian brought her up before I killed him."

"She is," Weiss breathed. Blake nudged her. "What? He already knew."

"These are the kinds of secrets we can't share with him just yet. He's a liability," Blake hissed.

"You said Cloud Strife. Is that your alter ego?" I asked. "Would you rather we call you that? It's a pretty name."

"Maybe. Jaune Arc was given to me by Salem or Merlot. I'm really not attached to it. Kind of disgusted by it to be honest."

"We'll support you. Whatever you decide."

"Thank you. And Cloud does have a nice ring to it, let's roll with that," he smiled.

"You were also working with Neapolitan. She attacked me. She tried to kill me," Yang said.

"She wanted revenge against Cinder and I happened to run into her. Our agendas aligned and her powers are useful," Cloud shrugged. "I won't lie, she's a bit of a monster. But then so am I."

"You're not a monster," Weiss murmured.

"No?" He asked. "I've killed people. I've tortured people."

"I've tortured people, well a person," Weiss said. "You're not alone in that."

"And I've killed people. Lots of them." Blake muttered.

"I was made in a laboratory out of Salem's cells by a mad man. Pretty sure I qualify. You should have seen my father's other experiments. I found where I was born, this incubator. Did you know that I'm only four years old? Because I didn't. He grew me until I was almost an adult and then sold me back to Salem then she had me sneak into Beacon. All of my dreams, all of it was fake."

"But you had memories. Remember Shion? Remember your sisters?" I asked.

"Fake," he sighed. "Or wrong. Incomplete. My sisters though are somewhere out there. I couldn't find any notes on them in Merlot's laboratory but Salem mentioned them in Haven. She has my sisters, whoever they really are. I ran into their creator at this other laboratory, this man with a mustache."

"We ran into a group of girls. They were younger than you but their powers were like yours a little," Blake said. "They all had blue eyes and blonde hair. They were after the relic and attacked us in Argus. Could they have been your sisters?"

"Maybe. It's possible. I might recognize them if I saw them. Mother gave me a lot of memories, not all of them were outright wrong, some were merely half-true."

"Mother?" Yang asked.

"Salem. I meant Salem. Damnit." He hit the table with a fist. I flinched back a little from the loud noise. He seemed oblivious to it. Running a palm through his spiky hair.

"How long are they keeping you here?" I asked.

"Well they did call it a three day hold. And mental patient or not it's nice to be held," he smiled a little. He rubbed his face with his hands. Hard. "Ah. They've got my weapon somewhere. I'd rather you all had it."

"We've got Ren and Nora's weapons, do you want them?" Weiss asked.

"No. Gods no. I don't. I don't deserve them. What did you do with their bodies, if I can ask?"

"We had them cremated." Weiss reached out and took his hand with one of hers. She rubbed gently over the back of his fingers.

He nodded. He was crying a little. "Thanks. For the best, that." He wiped his face again. His cheeks were turning red from it. He wasn't a handsome crier.

I looked over at Yang. She bit her lip and looked away from me. I don't think she felt any anger towards Jaune, or Cloud, rather. I don't think she felt anything other than sorry for him. Blake was rubbing the back of her neck and was gazing at the ground. Her stare had a thousand yards to it.

I reached over and grabbed Weiss's other hand and she gave me a measured glance. She wasn't sure now was the time. I'd respect that if that was what she wanted. I just didn't want her to regret it.

"Blake, we should go…" Yang was watching us. "Unless you have any more questions for-um Cloud." She fumbled slightly towards the end.

"You don't have magic, do you?" Blake asked.

"Not past my semblance and a bit of dust I've been practicing with. Not that I know of, I should say."

"Then I think I'm out," Blake said. Yang nodded at her. Blake and Yang departed through the double locked doors of the hospital. That left Cloud and the two of us. "See you later, Cloud."

He nodded to them and looked between us. He inhaled a shaking breath.

"We have something we need to tell you…" I said. "Cloud, Weiss and I are together."

He breathed and nodded along. "I see. You like girls, then."

"Not quite. Neither of us do completely," Weiss murmured.

"I don't understand. I'm a dumbass so whatever it is you'd better spell it out for me," he gave me a brave smile. It was weak underneath. He was scared.

"Cloud…" I mumbled. I rather liked it. It was a good name. It was his own and not Salem's. I thought it was an encouraging sign of his independence. A rose by any other name smelt just as sweet anyways. "I love Weiss. And I also love you."

"You dolt, you're not stupid." Weiss said to him fondly. "I'm well- I love you too." Weiss finished. "And I love Ruby. I'm not sure if you're poly or open to that…"

"I don't want to lose you," I told him while I held his hand. I let some tears flow. " But I need Weiss as well. I can't do it without her behind me. So will you give the three of us a try? When you left we kissed and I realized how much I wanted her. I... I need you too though. I told you that at the Golden Saucer. I meant it. I can't choose. Please don't make me choose. "

Cloud leaned back and exhaled. "My heart… from what you started with I thought it was going to be bad news…" he still looked almost scared.

"I take it that this isn't bad news?" Weiss asked. "Don't tell me you're afraid of our wants." She laughed a little but she was desperately watching his face. She wanted to know. She wanted to know what he felt. I did too, but I was less scared.

"No. Its-its fine. I'm open. I'm willing to try, just wait for me to get out of here. Alright? We'll be able to talk more."

"You think they'll let you out and not put you in prison?" I wondered.

"No way. They'll want me out in the field. The things I can do... They'd be foolish to put me away. And no prison could hold me anyways." He smiled weakly at us.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	68. Big Picture I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"So they're letting you out?" Ruby asked.

"Well I've been in out-patient care and I got out of in-patient care." I shrugged. They were giving me my weapon back with a hefty fine and time-served. I guess they were desperate for reformed huntsmen on the right side of the law.

And my psychiatrist had eagerly pressed me through as truly reformed. I'd had to sit in front of a judge for my sentencing but my psychiatrist had explained who I was and the extenuating circumstances I had been through. A mind control semblance was the declassified word.

Horrifying.

"That's it then? You're free?" Ruby wondered.

"All horizons," I told her.

"Atlas law requires you to see a therapist for nine weeks minimum," Weiss cut in on my other side. "For the PTSD related issues."

"This fucking continent." I clenched a fist.

"Hey, it's for your own good. Better to not fight it and come out of it with something." Weiss said.

"I can't believe you're getting off so easily," Blake muttered.

"Hey did you get a deal like this once?" I asked. "And you weren't even mind controlled."

She looked away and said nothing. Truly reformed huntsmen were hard to come by and it was easier to snatch them up where they appeared. My psychiatrist, therapist, and neurologist all greenlit me.

"Speaking of, how are those meds they have you on treating you?" Weiss asked.

"They're sedating. But I'm managing. The ones they had me on before this batch gave me terrible nightmares."

"Is that how it works?" Weiss wondered.

"It's not an exact science. There's some guessing involved to find some that work for you."

"And these ones work for you?" Yang asked.

I waggled a hand. "I miss THC and CBD but this seems like a close second."

"The doctors said that those were both exacerbating your symptoms," Weiss wedged in.

"Those doctors have never had an alien goddess in their mind."

I was met with a loud silence. They weren't sure what to say when I said something like that. No one was. Because no one knew what I was going through besides my sisters wherever they are.

I paced forward. "So this is Atlas Academy."

"We'll have to talk to the General about getting you a room," Ruby muttered.

"Oh I'm sure he'll be happy to see you." Yang rolled her eyes. "I mean no offense."

"Yeah well I have to serve my time somehow. Military service is probably it for somebody like me. With my particular set of skills."

"But will he trust you?" Weiss asked.

"Better question. Should I be trusted or will I sell you all out to Salem again?" I asked.

"You didn't sell us out. You brought us the relic," Ruby said.

"I… I killed Ren and Nora, Ruby." I couldn't believe her. She still believed in me.

"That wasn't you," she denied. Maybe she even believed it. I couldn't be sure with Ruby. Well I could. She was just hard to look at because of it.

"It wasn't not me. I have a lot to atone for, and I might do it again."

"You broke her control over you once," Weiss reminded me. She led the way through grey halls up to the headmaster's office.

"I keep telling everyone I have no idea how I did that though."

"You're not exactly selling me on this. On you," Blake informed me.

"Not really trying to. I'm trying to remind you how dangerous I really am. How much of a liability I could be. It's important."

"Cloud, how does this whole time served thing work?" Yang asked.

"That's a little up to Ironwood. He could send me anywhere but he sort of has to accept me on somewhere. That's what the judge ruled. He's not a dictator. Not yet at any rate."

"It'll probably be better if you don't talk to him like that," Weiss said. "He won't appreciate it."

"You're probably right." I sighed. We took a grey elevator up to his office. It provided a scenic look out over the tundra and parts of Mantle.

Neo was out there somewhere. I contacted her and let her know I was watching for Cinder from this side and promised to let her know if anything was going down. I was sure she was managing just fine without me though. I was on the inside now. I could watch for Cinder better from here. I'd just have to trust that Neo would show up when it was opportune. I just hoped she wouldn't think I was abandoning her or the cause. Because I wasn't. I was still in camp murder Cinder and she was a big girl, she could look after herself if only for as long as this charade lasted. It couldn't go on forever. Eventually I'd slip up and something Salem related would happen.

I also let her know I was getting some serious psychological help for the psychosis. She seemed neutral about that, though. Maybe she thought I was doing just fine. I hadn't been but I was glad she thought that.

Ironwood wasn't in when we arrived. That left us waiting outside for a bit. You couldn't really expect him to be in at all times.

Winter Schnee was there though. She gave me an icy glare and I just smiled back at her wolfishly.

"Oh, it's you," she said.

"Right back at you. How's the throat?"

"Just fine, thank you. You won't surprise me again."

"I don't need surprise to beat you," I told her. "You're weak and I'm good. And don't think that becoming a maiden will bail you out. I almost killed Cinder and I was weaker then by a country mile."

"Weiss, you told him?" She looked shocked.

"He already knew. All about the bunker and what was in it." Weiss responded calmly.

"Neo and I did some digging in that department," I said.

"Ah yes, your criminal partner. Any idea where she is right now?" Winter asked.

"I have no idea." I told her honestly. "I have had no contact with her since my voluntary imprisonment," I then lied. I mixed the truth with lies.

"I see. Well should you remember anything Atlas would consider that necessary information."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I ought to teach you respect."

"Many have tried. Like Mother."

Her eyes gleamed, spotting weakness. "You meant Salem, I am sure."

"I did…" I trailed weakly.

"Winter, that's enough. Leave him be. Family is complicated and he didn't ask to be born to that monster. You and I should have some empathy for that," Weiss said.

Winter sighed down at Weiss. "Weiss…"

The general walked in and spotted us. He noticed Jaune armed with his weapon.

"They gave you your weapon back, so soon?" Ironwood asked.

"A week and half isn't that soon," I muttered. "I'm here for my assignment."

"I see. And team RWBY is…"

"Moral support."

"Have a seat Mr. Arc."

"It's Strife now."

"You changed your name, then."

"Arc was a fake name anyway. It was the name my parents gave me." I took a seat. There was a lot to unpack in that sentence I just said. Most people were given their names by their parents. Most people just didn't hate their parents like I did.

"I can respect that. Ozpin has recommended an assignment close by for you. I'm less convinced."

"He did? Why?" I asked.

"He wants to see if you are capable of his and Salem's kind of magic. He wants to train you if that is that case."

"Oh," I hadn't thought of that. "Well I did give his current body some training. Maybe he just wants to pay it forward."

"Perhaps. And he's done a great deal to protest your innocence. You should be grateful to him."

"Then I am."

"I have decided you will work out of this Academy. For the time being at least."

"You want me where you can keep an eye on me," I deduced.

"Things will go smoother if you have more trust in me than that. I am sure your therapists will have been trying to work through your paranoid thinking with you. Not everyone is trying to watch you, Mr. Strife." He steepled his fingers.

"But I'm pretty sure you are." Weiss elbowed me fairly hard in the side. "Regardless of your reasons for doing it I am grateful."

"I was hoping we could talk more about how you were made. You explored Merlot's laboratory and might have insights for me," he probed.

"I actually explored two different labs. I ran into someone in the second, near here in Solitas. Near a place called Nibelhiem. He was a man with a mustache and a navy suit with yellow trimmings. He had green eyes and dark hair. I didn't see his weapon, though. He never used it. He said he was the one who made my sisters before he tried to use the laboratory… defenses to kill me."

"I see. But you found no more information on you or your sisters there?" He asked.

"No. Just more of my father's usual experiments on the Grimm. Something to do with turning them blue. I'm really not sure. The lab in Anima was like that too except he was turning them green and there were humanoid Grimm that he had designed. They were loose and in tanks in the facility. Tanks not dissimilar to the one he grew me in."

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Weiss's comforting aura drew in beside mine. She tasted like whipped cream and clear crisp crushed ice.

"And he grew you in one of these… 'tanks?'" Ironwood asked.

"An incubator of some sort, I'm sure. But to me they were just these sort of pods. Merlot's book has more notes on the one he used for me. It was a bit different than the others. He grew me from a fetus until I was nearly an adult in just a year," I said.

"That would make you young. Like Penny Polendina." His brow went up at me.

"Yeah. Something like that. I'm between three and four years old. I don't have an exact date for my birthday either. Don't remember if they ever gave me one or if it really matters considering I didn't have a birth," I informed him. "Anything else you'd like to know?"

"Well there is something I'd actually like to inform you of. You'll probably die young."

"I'm a hunter," I countered.

"Yes. I suppose that's also true. What I meant was that you're unstable. Your cells will undergo collapse and you're at a high risk of cancer."

"I see… from the growing process, I take it. I am just a failure, after all." I wasn't really meant to last. I was just a prototype.

"Cloud..." Ruby whined behind me. The noise she made sounded like she was sad for a dog. It wasn't a good sound.

I ignored her. "How long do I have?"

"It's impossible to say." Ironwood returned. "We'll know more once symptoms set in. And of course aura could take the edge off of it or delay their onset. But you will likely die from it, if nothing else kills you first."

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

"Of course. Now, let's see what you can do Mr. Strife."

"Finally, something I'm good at."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I glid through the training chamber at one of the Ace Ops members. I hadn't learned their names but he had a boomerang rifle.

I caught up to him and swung twice horizontally in two enormous strikes that buffeted him around when he tried to block.

He jumped back and tried to fire at me but my profile was low as I came at him in an unrelenting fashion. I palmed a dust crystal and hit him with a lightning bolt that knocked him to his knees.

I came at him with a diagonal cut when another Ace Operative grabbed me with extensions of his aura. He tried to stop me in place but I jumped and twirled and cut at his golden aura. I severed the extended hands and the removed parts dissolved into fading golden light.

I front-flipped, moving on to the new target. I landed up on some of the glowing cubes in the training room. He reformed his hands and tried to beat me but I just sliced through. I flew at him with both hands on my broadsword.

My sixth sense called out to me and I flicked my sword up to block the boomerang rifle. It rebounded back to its user and he opened fire on me as I went after the wacky inflatable arm guy.

I closed the gap on the pillar he stood on and slashed through his aura arms that got in my way. I kicked him off the pillar and brought my sword down on his head. I cleaved deep into his aura and still I chased him as I blew him to the ground level with a massive overhead attack.

He had a lot of aura. He might be the only person I'd ever met in my own percentile of aura. He might even have more than me.

I chased him as he fell from when I slammed him and I beat him to the ground. I Cross-Slashed him before he hit the ground. The devastating combination caught him up. The five move slashing attack tore away at his golden aura.

My Limit Break activated.

The dog faunus came around a corner and opened fire on me. I switched opponents again as I flew at him. I held my weapon between us and blocked most of his bullets. The few that got through pinged off my aura. I slashed upwards at him and he rolled to the side with a yelp.

I just stepped up on him again and swung upwards once more. Once he was airborn I had him right where I wanted him. I juggled him once. Then twice. Then again. He couldn't escape from the aerials I swung up at him.

I jumped up to match his height and Octa-slashed him. He flew towards the ground and slammed into a pile of the boxes.

His light blue aura flowed to place over him before it vanished. I flew down on him in a swooping fashion and tackled him and carried him all the way to a wall of the arena. I stabbed my sword into the ground and beat the aura out of him with my fists. I punched him in the jaw. Then the stomach. Then I picked him up and slammed him into the ground.

Golden arms wrapped around me and picked me up and threw me across the room. I slammed into a pile of boxes back first. My head rocked back against the boxes. I stood up and put my sword against my shoulder.

The wacky arm guy landed next to the dog faunus and helped him to his feet. They turned to stare at me. I stared right back.

A golden arm slithered towards me across the ground and snagged my leg. It picked me up and slammed me face first into the ground. Then it rotated me and slammed me into the ground the other way.

Then it held me in the air and I got rocked by a boomerang to the face.

I snarled and cut myself free.

I landed on a pocket of air and descended towards the ground. I flew at the two of them through machine gun fire. An arm slashed at my side and I grunted but I cut through the next one and kept flying.

I landed between them and just to flex I charged my semblance to full. Then I swept my sword through the dog faunus's aura. He went down in a light blue crackle. He was lucky I hadn't hurt him for real.

I came at the next guy with a front-flip. I brought my sword down on him and he blocked with his aura. Even still my sword bit deep. I kicked him in the middle of the chest and he stumbled back a step. Then I flew at him with a knee and caught him in the face.

A golden claw slashed me to the ground but I never hit. Instead I floated on a pocket of air and rotated in place. I swept my blade around me and forced him back a half step.

The dog faunus stood up. "Marrow, don't!"

'Marrow' opened fire right into my back.

I whipped around and glared at him. I snarled. I hit him in the head with the blunt side of my weapon and he crumpled like a sack of bricks with a large bruise forming on the side of his head.

"Do you want to call this here?" I asked the one still standing. "Or do I have to beat you into unconsciousness, too?"

"I'll surrender. You fought well." The remaining man said sibilantly.

I nodded and put my weapon in the harness on my back. I hope there was more to Ace Ops than this.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	69. Big Picture II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I leaned against my sword as the man introduced as 'Vine' carried Marrow away on his shoulder.

Ruby came dashing down from the observation box. She let go of Weiss's hand and Weiss followed at a more subdued pace with Penny in tow.

"That was amazing, Cloud. The way you fly around. You've grown so much."

I looked away from Ruby's praise. Color rising to my cheeks. She hopped up and kissed me on the cheek. I risked a glance down at where she was glowing up at me. I could feel her cinnamon and rose flavored aura.

"So you are Cloud? Not Jaune?" Penny asked. "I thought Ruby's boyfriend was named Jaune."

"It's complicated," I said. "Salem named me Jaune. Well her or Merlot. I'm not attached to it since I learned that."

"Well you did well at any rate, Cloud. You took on two Ace Operative members at the same time. I assure you that's not easy. Even I haven't done that yet," Penny went on.

"Yes it was very impressive, Cloud," Weiss said. "You've grown so much. It's unbelievable."

What was unbelievable was the thought that both these two ladies had the hots for me. I was still trying to wrap my mind around it. I could tell Weiss was too. She seemed a little flustered but just like Ruby she came up and pecked my cheek and walked back blushing. She was a little more uncomfortable with public displays of affection than Ruby was but it was something we would just have to learn.

We'd have to find an appropriate balance that made everybody feel right.

Or they would get tired of putting up with me and decide they wanted to be with each other. You know what I had my money on.

"Well thank you Weiss."

"Wait, I don't understand," Penny began. "Ruby, how does your relationship work?"

"Well I like Weiss and Cloud. And Weiss likes me and Cloud too."

"So the three of you are together?"

"That's right," I said.

"That's so fascinating. Relationships are so interesting. It seems a little..."

"Awkward?" I asked. "We're still ironing out the kinks."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Penny rambled. "It's not my business."

Ruby grinned and put an arm around Weiss and I. I smiled down at her. Her arm barely wrapped halfway around me at the waist.

"Penny, you were made in a lab, weren't you?" I began.

"I was. My father created me. Why do you ask?"

"Cloud was made in a laboratory too," Weiss said. Her eyes went wide perhaps realizing where I was going with it.

"Well I was wondering how you stay so upbeat? When I learned where I came from I was depressed as hell."

"Well for one thing I always knew where I came from. Perhaps that helped me," Penny began. "Why is it depressing?"

"Well we're basically both baking soda and vinegar volcanoes."

"You mean because I'm not even a real person," Penny confirmed.

"Hey, I'm not either. You're not special in that department," I ran with her train of thought.

"Oh would you stop that." Weiss hit my chest with the back of her hand. It was affectionate though. Her fingers lingered and our aura's buzzed together like electricity. "You're real."

"Both of you are real people," Ruby said.

"Hardly. Barely." I breathed. "If at all."

"Stop it!" Ruby protested. She slapped me harder on the leg than Weiss did. Much more insistent and less flirtatious.

"But you were made for Salem, correct?" Penny wondered.

"I was technically a failure. A prototype. I was made to be thrown away."

"That's sad," Penny said.

"Penny!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Well it is. I never went through a prototype phase like that. My father doesn't have the aura for it," Penny continued. "But you are loved. Doesn't that feel good?"

Weiss blushed again. She was still approaching her feelings tentatively. It had taken enough out of her to confess them, I suppose.

"It does…" I trailed. "I guess I get caught up thinking about it too much. I'm sinking in thinking about something depressing."

"I can see how you would get sad thinking about that. I suppose I am a prototype, too, but I was never meant to be tossed aside."

I nodded. "Mother just found another use for me. Otherwise I think she would have killed me. Her or my father."

"Cloud, I think you meant Salem," Weiss cut in.

"When?" I asked. I was genuinely lost.

"My father cares about me. Perhaps that's the difference. My parent cares about me," Penny went on.

"He has no idea when he does it sometimes," Weiss murmured to Ruby.

"I noticed that," Ruby returned. "He even did it before Haven once. I didn't think much of it at the time."

"That's decidedly bad news," Weiss went on.

"No idea when I do what?" I asked.

"You call Salem 'mother' often," Weiss said.

"I think it just slips out of you," Ruby muttered like it was a secret, nodding along with her own words.

"Oh shit, my bad."

"It's not inaccurate, though, is it? What's wrong with it?" Penny asked.

"I fucking hate her. That's what's wrong with it."

"I see how that could cause problems. I'm on good terms with my father so I don't really have that problem. I also don't have a mother," she happily chirped.

"Luckily I have these two," I picked Ruby and Weiss up with one arm each. Ruby giggled and Weiss let out an adorable yelp of surprise before she slapped my collar again, it was still slightly flirtatious and her hand lingered there longer than it needed to. It seemed like she was just coming out of her shell when it came to me, like she wasn't quite sure what she wanted, especially in terms of shows of affection. Hopefully we had time to figure it out.

"They're both in my camp. Even though all the odds are stacked against me," I declared.

"Would you put me down, you gorilla." Weiss demanded. Her face was an adorable beet red.

I did.

I still held Ruby up. She wrapped her arms around my head and kissed me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"The last time we spoke it was about how you were an agent of Salem's. I'm sure you could imagine my confusion at the events of Haven," Ozpin said through Oscar's lips.

I was alone with him in his room at the academy. We were bound to talk eventually. When he summoned me I figured it would be better to get it over and done with.

"Yeah well imagine my surprise when it turned out to be true. I was Salem's agent. That's why I was at Beacon."

"I see. But you yourself had no idea."

I nodded. "False and half true memories all the way down. Memories of family from before are all like that. Even of where and how I grew up. I just never put that much thought into it."

"I see. But you know better now?"

"Maybe a little. I'm still working out what's true and false. I'm mostly counting everything before initiation as false, though. Some things were half true. Like my sisters."

"And you know this because…?"

"Salem mentioned them when she captured my mind at Haven."

"But you broke free. That explains why we were attacked by those looking for the relic. One question answered, at least."

"The others mentioned that too. That maybe they were my sisters. It's possible. They were successes made by a different scientist," I said.

"Whereas you were a failure created by Merlot," he clarified. He jabbed his cane at me as he said it.

"That's right."

"For a failure you have absurd strength. You killed Tyrian. That's no mean feat."

"Thank you…" I trailed.

"I can't help but wonder if there is some of my sort of magic in play for you. Aiding you along the way."

"If there is, it's well hidden behind my semblance and usage of dust."

"Why don't we try a simple exercise? It used to be well practiced back in the old world when magic like mine was common. Try to turn this needle into a feather."

He set a needle down on the desk before me.

I stared at it. I had no idea where to even begin with something like that for all that it seemed like a simple request.

I reached out and picked up the needle. Nothing called out to me in terms of where to proceed with it. It was just a needle. And I was just a man. How could I possibly transform it?

"Yes. Indeed it took Oscar many attempts to succeed in this magic and I knew how it was done."

"I don't know where to start," I informed him.

He reached out and I was sort of able to feel what he was doing. I wasn't sure if it was aura or something more but I could tell something was up as he transformed the needle into a feather and back again.

"Now you try, Mr. Arc."

"It's Strife now. Arc was the name Salem gave me."

"I see. Very well, Mr. Strife."

I reached out once more and focused. Nothing happened. I imagined the needle turning into a feather and let out a little of my aura.

Nothing happened.

Because it was a needle. It was made of metal and a feather was not. If I hadn't just seen it done I would say that it was impossible.

"You must believe in yourself. Magic is about the things you can believe in. If you can't believe in it, you will never succeed.

I tried again. I tried to believe that I could.

_I think I can. _

The needle might have wobbled a little but it didn't turn into anything.

"Keep the needle, Mr. Strife. Practice a little every day. We will yet see if progress can be made with you. Focus and believe in your magic. You must extend your will in order to accomplish any magic."

"That sounds like bullshit. No offense."

"Believe, Mr. Strife. Just as you believe in your semblance. Just as you believe in your dust. It is the same. It can be. If you choose to make it so."

"I'll keep the needle. I'll keep trying," I promised him from my seat.

"See that you do. You could be an enormous asset to our side. I know you feel as though you cannot make up for the harm you have caused but that, too, is a matter of will and belief. I doubt Mr. Lie and Ms. Valkyrie would want you to give up so easily."

I hardly wanted to hear their names.

"Is that all?"

"Not quite. I know this may be uncomfortable for you but I wish to hear about how Salem was able to control you."

I nodded and grimaced.

"She spoke and her words had power to them. She told me to stay silent and I almost bit my tongue off."

"But you were still competent enough to slay Mr. Lie and Ms. Valkyrie? Would you say her control over you was both subconscious and conscious? You were able to plan for her desires but unable to resist them?"

"That's exactly right. It was both. She...she owned me. Completely."

"That's troubling. There is some magic for such a thing but it mostly implies one or the other. Not both."

"I'm telling you she had all of me."

"I believe you, Mr. Strife. It is troubling is all. What happened next?" He asked.

"She talked to me. About Merlot and my sisters. She said we had long been in her dreams. Then Nora and Ren came in. She told me to kill them both and I had to obey."

I didn't like talking about it. I didn't even like to think about it. It was my lowest moment. It brought a lone tear to my eye which I wiped away with my right hand's forefinger.

"Well Mr. Strife, the control over you is very troubling indeed."

"Do you know how she did it? How she's in my dreams?"

"She is in your subconscious. When she spoke to you she was able to rise to the surface. That's how she took control. It must be in the nature of your connection to her from being grown from her cells."

"How do I fight it?" I pleaded.

"You already are, young man. Do not give up. Resist her. Resist her nightmares. Fight against them and rage against her ability to over power you. That is the only way you will stay in control. There is no shortcut, no easy path for you. Her control over you is not a simple thing for her either. I suspect you may be able to influence her as well."

"She's so strong." I didn't mean for it to come out as a whimper but it did a little. "She's so old. She's a goddess."

"Not quite."

"Then she's the closest thing to one without actually being one."

"Perhaps. She is powerful, but so are you. Resist Mr. Strife."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"You might have the others fooled but I know what you are." Blake informed me. It was just the two of us in team RWBY's room while I waited for Weiss and Ruby to come back.

"I haven't fooled anybody. I've outright told them all what I am. The shit I'm capable of. It's not my fault that they chose to not believe me anyways."

"You're taking advantage of them."

"Maybe," I agreed. "What should I do? In your professional opinion, of course."

"Make sure you can't hurt anybody else."

"What? Kill myself? I thought about it. I even tried to."

She looked away from me. Wouldn't meet my eye. "What happened?"

"Couldn't hold my aura low enough to cut through my wrists. It was just after I broke Salem's spell. I was a little shaken up," I said.

"And now?"

"Now I'm on a lot of medications that are supposed to stop me from thinking suicide is my only option."

"Does it work? The meds?"

"A little. I'm still pretty fucked up. I've been open and clear with everybody about that. No tricks."

"You know how Ruby is. She just wants to see the best in people."

"And Weiss and Yang?"

"Weiss never wanted to believe it about you. She was falling for you. She had rose tinted specs. She couldn't see the thing you've become. Yang just wants what's best for Ruby in all this. It's hard to believe you're it, however."

"The thing I've become," I laughed. "You know what I think, Blake?"

"What's that?" She asked.

"You're absolutely god damn right. I'm a fucking monster. I have killed and maimed and tortured. I killed my own best friends."

"You said Salem made you do it."

"And she did. But that only makes me a tool. Her weapon. That doesn't make the things I've done any less real. Most people get to wonder about whether they have free will. I don't. She speaks and I have to obey."

"So I want you to stay away from my friends."

"Hey," I said. "They're my friends too. Or girlfriends. Trying to wrap my mind around that one."

"Never thought it would happen to you? I thought that was most guys' dream. To have two beautiful women in love with them."

"Yes well. Compare how pathetic I was freshmen year to the shit that's happened to me now and suddenly it wasn't exactly in my realm of possibility or even the realm of my imagination. I thought just Ruby loved me. I come here and find out she's got some threesome business up her sleeve with Weiss who also wants a piece of me. It blew my mind. Especially after freshman year and how things were with Weiss."

"But you didn't say no. You said yes."

"I said I was willing to try. Whatever form that may happen to land. Ruby and Weiss may decide they're better off without me," I said. "That would surprise me less than not."

"You hate yourself," Blake realized.

"You would too if you were me. Who wouldn't? I killed my best friends. I see Salem sometimes out of the corner of my eye. She lingers there just beyond the edge of my perception. Just beyond the things that are real. She'll want me to kill again. _I can feel it_."

"Which is why I want you to leave my friends be. They don't need to be caught up in what you are," she said. She folded her arms at that.

"I need help. I can't survive without them. I tried living that way. Mostly alone. It didn't work out for me. And I'm right where I need to be to fight Cinder when she comes again. My hated enemy. I take it you haven't talked to them about this."

She shook her head. "They don't want to hear that you're unstable. Especially Ruby. Weiss at least I feel like I can get through to sometimes, but Ruby is just so happy you're back and safe."

"Am I back and safe?" I wondered.

"Well, are you?" She shot back.

"Perhaps. I have psychic trauma that the medicine just isn't hitting. It's helping with my hallucinations but not the other stuff. My fears are too real. They keep pushing me up on the tranquilizers and sedatives like the things I'm afraid of aren't there. But they are. They can get me."

"You don't fight like you're sedated. You fight very awake and aware."

"Well thank you," I decided to take that as a compliment even if she didn't mean it as such.

I clutched at my side where Taurus had sliced me. It was healing a little still and I got the occasional pang of pain from it.

"Are you hurt?"

"I was. This White Fang guy did a number on me. He got lucky."

"What was their name?"

"Adam Taurus. Evidently he's this ol-"

"You fought Adam Taurus? When? He's in town?"

"It was a few days before my voluntary incarceration. You know him?"

"I did. Once upon a time." She rubbed her right arm with her left hand. "He was my partner in the White Fang before I turned."

"He's a real piece of work," I said. "I take it that wasn't always the case."

"No it wasn't. And are you really one to talk?"

"At least I know it."

"And you think that helps?"

"It literally couldn't make things worse for me. What do you want from me, Blake? You want me to kill Taurus? Would that make you happy? You want me to kill myself or go back into exile?"

Her ears flattened subconsciously.

"I just want my friends to be safe."

"I'll keep them safe," I vowed.

"Even from yourself?" She asked.

"I swear to do my best. What more can you ask from me? Besides for me to stop existing. Because I have a feeling you don't see that as a real solution either."

"So long as you don't hear her real voice you're in control?"

"That seems to be the prognosis."

"What about recordings?"

"I think she has to be behind it for real. There's a magic to it."

"And you can break the spell?" She reassured.

"With enough time."

She hesitated, her arms folded. She nodded once. "Then you have my tentative permission."

"Well thank you. I was really worried about what you thought." I paused. "That came out sarcastic but you're their teammate and friend. I think you were my friend once too."

"I still am. I think. It's just complicated."

"Mind control. It's a hell of a poison."

"I don't blame you. I just want what's best for them," she said.

"I understand. Really. I do. I'm the leader of the 'This sucks' camp. I do my best to remind them at every turn. I think they see me as someone who needs their help."

"You think it's Florence Nightingale effect?"

"That's…?"

"When nurses fall in love with their patient."

"Ah, maybe a little, then," I muttered.

"You underestimate their feelings for you. They really care about you. We all do. We hate to see the suffering you're going through."

"You're a bunch of empaths. One and all."

Ruby, Weiss and Yang walked in and saw us talking.

"Oh, Blake and Cloud…" Ruby began.

"Are you…?" Weiss trailed off.

"We were talking about Adam Taurus," I covered for us both. "I ran into him a few weeks ago. Before I was hospitalized."

"You fought him?" Ruby asked.

"And I've got the scars to prove it," I said.

"And what did you think of him?" Yang's eyes flickered between Blake and I. She had a sort of nervous energy to her.

"He got lucky. I can take him. Next time," I informed them.

"So Jaune-sorry. I meant Cloud. We were thinking. That is Ruby and I…" Weiss struggled.

I just cocked my head and listened to her.

"We wanted to try a date. The three of us," Ruby supplied. She sounded much less nervous than Weiss did about it.

Weiss had probably never been on a date like this where Ruby and I had. I wasn't sure what all she and Neptune had gotten up to and it probably wouldn't be for the best to ask.

"Yes. That," Weiss managed. A rosy blush colored her cheeks.

"I'm game," I said. "Do you mind if I bring my weapon?" I'd be uncomfortable walking around without Crocea Mors.

"Well we weren't going to leave them out of this." Ruby rolled her eyes. Her excitement was infectious and I grinned down at her tiny form. Weiss cracked a smile at her.

"I suppose you would consider this a six way date with our weapons involved," Weiss teased. She sounded a little more relaxed.

"A little," Ruby poked her forefingers together with a new found nervous energy. "They're important. Cloud also wasn't here when I got Crescent Rose upgraded. He might like to meet her again."

I laughed. "Of course, Rubes."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	70. Proud Ice Queen IX

**All characters are eighteen or older. Except Cloud who is biologically eighteen or older and is chronologically four. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Weiss PoV)

I was a little worried about this date. I didn't want to feel like a third wheel and just as importantly I didn't want Cloud and Ruby to feel like I was a third wheel.

Cloud… I was still getting used to calling him that. It was a pretty name. It was so pretty I wasn't sure that he had come up with it himself. It also fit him, I wasn't sure what Ruby thought of it but I felt like it matched him. Especially with the piercings and his hair spiked up like it was.

He didn't look like a Jaune. He looked like… well… a Cloud. Not an actual cloud but… you knew what I meant.

My situation had layers to it. I didn't want to feel like a third wheel. I didn't want them to feel like I was a third wheel. I didn't want anyone else to feel like a third wheel. It was a lot to worry about and I was a worrier. I was an overthinker. I was that sort of girl.

That was even more true in social situations. I hadn't had a lot of friends as a child. I was pretty sure that was how things became the way that they were with me. I had a touch of social anxiety. And walking now with both my 'crushes' was only amplifying that.

Who should walk in the middle? Should it be Ruby who Jaune and I were already both a little established with? Should it be Jaune who was the odd _man_ out? Or should it be me for some reason I couldn't think of but which was apparent to the other two?

Speaking of Ruby and Cloud being already established I didn't want them to decide that they were it and then keep me along out of some sense of pity or something similar.

Would Cloud resent me after I rejected him so harshly so many times? Was this all a prank on me on his end to make up for the cruelty I'd shown him.

It made me scared. It made me feel small. It kept me from talking much.

It turns out that Ruby took to the middle and we both took one of her hands each. Jaune had to slow his long stride for us to keep up and it gave him an odd slow good looking swagger to Ruby's adorably excited steps.

Jaune wasn't talking much either. He had a small smile on his face which now that I looked at it seemed small and fragile.

I wanted him to be having a good time.

One more thing for me to worry about.

I had a lot on my mind, leave me alone!

I couldn't for the life of me just relax into the company of my… my girlfriend and boyfriend. Try and not stumble over that. Try.

That was even more so true for me, raised in Atlas with the more strict love life code etched into my mind. It felt like we were breaking some unwritten law but all I was doing was listening to Ruby gush and tell Cloud about the things he had missed in her life. In both our lives really.

"We got our weapons upgraded by Dr Polendina, well some of us did."

"You let someone else touch your weapon?" He asked, that small smile touching on his face.

"Well I got to help."

"It was more like he helped her with a few things," I clarified for Cloud.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this date either. Maybe I just wasn't a date person. I loved when the lights were low and I was with both of them. Those early dawns in Mistral were what I thought of when I thought there was hope for me being involved in the two of them. Pink and blue lights in the beginning morning sun.

It was two different days. One with Ruby and one weeks later with Jaune, as he had been called then.

We went to a movie first. This forgettable rom-com that had been so cheesy it had hurt at parts. Making me hide my face out of embarrassment for the actors. I held Cloud's hand the whole way through. It had been quiet which made me relax a little. Then we'd gotten a quick dinner. Noodles and sauce in custom bowls at this place in midtown Atlas. It had been relatively cheap but that wasn't the point.

It had been nice.

We were out under harsher artificial Atlesian suns, now. The lampposts on the street were bright enough for those parts of the year where the country got little sunlight. We came up on a green park by night and we walked along the wide park paths together through crystalline trees. Artificial and so different from the real Solitas tundra.

It got me thinking about whether _we_ were artificial like the greenery of the park. Maybe we didn't belong together. Or maybe I was just worrying too much.

We strolled together in no particular hurry.

We were just out together. It should have been simple. It should have been comfortable. So why did I feel so tense?

Cloud walked so easily, shoulders back and chin up. It made him look even taller and more broad.

I was a touch taller than Ruby. But only a touch. It was emphasized because I wore heels and she didn't. Lady stilts, she called them.

"Something is wrong," I said at length. "I think we all know what it is but I'm just going to come out and say it."

"Don't you dare," Ruby murmured. She must have felt it too. She was the greatest empath out of us.

"Me," Cloud murmured at the same time I did.

"You?" We both wondered back at the other over Ruby's head.

I recalled a conversation Ruby and I once had about how we were similar. Cloud had been feeling the same thing I felt. He even reached the same conclusion. That he was the problem.

"Why would you be the problem? You and Ruby were so close," I whispered in the twilight.

"That was before I knew I was a monster. I thought you two would want to get rid of me. Be together. You've both always had good chemistry."

"You two have it too," I managed. I was shocked a little. I looked way up at his face. That fragile smile... He'd been sharing my worries all along.

"Ruby can get along with anything. I'm living proof of that," he dismissed.

He was thinking that he was the one that wasn't good enough. That he'd be the third wheel.

Ruby had been right.

We were alike.

"You're not a monster. No one sees you that way except for yourself," I whispered.

Ruby slunk back a little, drifting slightly behind to let us talk without looking over her head.

"Maybe none of you saw my father's other wretched specimens. You wouldn't be so quick to say that if you had."

"You're a person. With feelings. You… you must have been so lonely. I'm so sorry."

I thought about how Cloud must have felt. He'd just been used like a… like a puppet by his mother. Like how my father wished he could have used me in his wildest dreams. Before I broke free of his influence for good.

Cloud didn't have that. He was trapped between his mother's claws. Maybe forever because she was actually in his mind. My father had made me his doll once, compared to the sort of marionette his mother made him into, what was that?

Cloud was going through that too only his struggle seemed even more real than mine. My lack of a childhood was little compared to his real own total lack of one. He'd been grown in a jar, he didn't have a childhood. I'd at least gotten more than that.

I suddenly felt less alone. Cloud knew what it was like. As good as I did. And he was here with me.

"What happened to you was awful. Is awful. But I promise you're not the problem. The things you are and the things you do are wonderful."

His eyes in the dim Mistrali sun flashed behind mine.

"I felt like I was the odd one out," I said.

He just shook his head, gazing into my eyes. He really did look handsome.

"And I treated you so terribly freshman year, you were basically a newborn! Like Penny!"

He looked distinctly uncomfortable with that notion. He shuffled slightly and looked away. He didn't like that idea one bit. He'd rather I held him responsible for his actions. I had respect for that but I couldn't quite manage it to full effect. He'd been so messed up. He still was so screwed up. Hell, he'd been messed up in Mistral when I started to fall for him.

I remembered his terrible proposal with his guitar. He probably genuinely thought he could play and sing and his memories were playing tricks on him. Salem and Merlot's memories. Not his own.

But it was true. He'd been a child in a near adult's body. He had basically no real memories at that point and his head had been full of Salem's wants and desires. Coming from that angle it was amazing he'd been as sound as he had been. His advances weren't so childish or unbecoming from that angle. They were what they were.

They were his first experiments with the opposite sex, like a young boy's first crush. That's what they were.

I looked up at him. His eyes glowed with a hard edge to his face. He wasn't a boy anymore like he'd been freshman year. Trauma and combat had turned him into a man. He'd _earned_ his adulthood. That's what I'd seen in Mistral and he'd only been through more since then. There was a maturity to him that only came through real effort. And he wasn't afraid of that effort.

"I deserved it. Bothering you like that. Not taking no for an answer," he muttered softly. He probably believed that, too. Ruby was right. He did hate himself. "I should have listened when you shot me down the first time and left you be. I deserved that," he repeated.

"You did _not_!" I snapped with more heat than I meant to. He gave up his attempt to not meet my eye. "Can you forgive me?"

"Water under the bridge," he whispered, his voice smouldered like a soft flame. He reached out and tucked a stray branch of my hair behind my ear. He was so close.

At some point we'd stopped walking and he'd turned to stand before me. Ruby watched the two of us with baited breath off to one side. She'd been carrying this date with Cloud's and my awkwardness. We were still feeling each other out. We were saying the things that needed to be said.

His hand touched my face and pulled gently against my cheeks. I was looking up into his eyes. Then he kissed me. My hand tightened around Ruby's as both his lips wrapped around my bottom one even though he was taller than me.

His tongue raced against the pout of my lip. It tickled at me to open up. I was nervous but I opened my mouth up a little and his tongue darted inside for just a moment. He tasted of spice and something crisply burnt like crème brûlée.

I shuddered a little and goosebumps raced down my shoulders and spine. I shivered once. Ruby was right. He was a good kisser.

Our auras flared together and it buzzed against my skin like an electrical current. It hummed against my flesh. His golden hue was overpowering my little white one.

My thighs rubbed together a little. At the bridge. Near their top. I wasn't proud of that fact.

His hand came out and reached the small of my back. He pulled me a little closer to him and I made a noise that was lady-like in the technical sense but was unflattering. At least to me. He seemed to enjoy it, however, because he dove at my lips with a renewed vigor.

Ruby squeezed my hand back and though I knew she was watching it was a distant focus.

"C-cloud…" I murmured. I'd almost stumbled on his old name in my hazed mind.

He reached under my butt at that and picked me up with just one of his arms so that I was above him. The motion was fast and surprised me. I squealed a little, another unflattering noise before I whimpered into the kiss at his squeeze and caress.

He was so strong. I put my free hand against his firm chest to help support myself and I leaned down into him now rather than him into me.

He still hunted for my bottom lip. His teeth came to bear and he nibbled gently against it. His sharp teeth a dire contrast to the fullness of his lips.

He let out a noise against my lips. Part moan and part growl. It was a hungry sound. It made me flush with heat and a bit of pride. I caused that. He was hungry for me. But he was also partially satisfied. He'd _been_ hungry for me. Had been for a long long time. Most of his life _he had wanted me_ at least going by the real clock of his heart. And that same heart was satisfied by our long, drawn out kiss.

In the park at night, alone, just the three of us, he held me in the air easily. I felt none of the embarrassment or awkwardness. I ran my free hand behind his head and against his neck and pulled him closer to me. My chest pressed against his.

The fullness of it felt amazing. Sparingly, I let go of Ruby's hand with one final squeeze. Our fingertips traced together as I retracted my hand and wrapped my arm around his shoulders and he made me melt. I felt like I could barely hold on and I panted through my nose against his lips.

My eyelids fluttered shut a little. He must have let go of Ruby's hand too because his other hand came up and caressed my cheek, pulling me firmly down against him.

I tried to wrap my legs around his stomach just below his ribcage and he grunted as I shifted in his arms. I would have wanted to put my legs around his pelvis but he was too tall. And his frame was too wide for me to get my legs around him. I suffered because of it and let out a meek noise. He let out a low chuckle against my mouth.

He was laughing at me!

_How dare..._

I pulled back and took a deep breath. I brushed my plait back with a flick of my hand and a twist of my head and I looked down on him.

"You're laughing at me," I complained like it meant something as I looked down on him. His hands gripped my butt and felt amazing. I wanted him to hold me more in his strong arms. I wanted his full calloused hands to roam me.

"A little. You were so adorable," he returned with a wide grin.

"Adorable?" I was supposed to be sexy. I was supposed to be hot. Like he was. Not cute or similar. Very much not adorable.

"You couldn't get your legs around me. It was adorable. You're so small," he teased me more.

"I'm not that small!"

"You are," he swooned.

"I'll show you adorable. If we were at the academy I would…"

"Go on," he insisted.

"I would do all kinds of things."

"Of course you would."

"You doubt me?" I asked. I put a little shock into my voice.

"I really don't want to," he returned, his tone somehow full of agreement.

I tapped his shoulder to be put down and he set me on the ground. I brushed something hard on my way down. I flushed. I caused that. Just by kissing him I did that to him. Not that I was in a much better state.

I could use a cold shower. His hands had left deep memories on my body.

"Will that go away?" I teased him back.

"I can walk it off. Be fine," he grunted.

His eyes watched me with a certain degree of thirst as I twisted away from him. I turned away and tried to master myself. I was still breathing hard a little and my body was all kinds of active.

"So… what'd you think?" Ruby asked. She was over to Cloud's side.

"Well...he's a good kisser," I managed, still flustered.

"I told you." She laughed. She was laughing at me too!

I'd show her. I'd show them both.

"Talking about me?" Cloud asked.

"All sorts of things," I whispered. I brushed a hand against his chest.

"Behind your back, too." Ruby grabbed his arm and pulled it close to her chest. She kissed his cheek once with a little jump to leave a peck behind on his face.

He looked between us bemused and I saw a real smile on his face not like the delicate thing he'd worn throughout our date.

"Well just so long as it's good things."

"You'll never know," Ruby murmured. "We girls get up to all kinds of stuff."

"Like kissing," I whispered.

"I might like to see that," he interjected.

"Oh I'm sure you would," I said.

"Maybe as a treat," Ruby went on.

"But only if you behave," I finished.

He gave us a mocking bow that hid nothing. "Whatever it takes."

"We could always give him a prelude," I murmured. I wrapped both arms around Ruby's neck. Our noses brushed together.

I gave her a gentle kiss. She whimpered into it. It was soft. Especially compared to Cloud's fervor. It was also a contest between us who would get the other's bottom lip which led to us nipping at each other. Ruby was wolfish but eventually I won and Ruby fell against me with a low cry.

Cloud let out a low suffering groan.

"You ladies are going to kill me. I'm supposed to be walking this thing off."

"No, you just get to stand there and watch," I ordered, a pleased smile on my face as I watched him run his face with his hands.

The park at night was a quiet and romantic place. Perfect for our little exhibitions as we opened each other up and got to know the others with full affections.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	71. Mesmerized I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

_The car I was driving in took a spill of a sheer cliff. It plummeted down for a terrifying moment and I was weightless until it can splashing down in the ink black water. _

_It started to sink and I panicked but I was locked inside the vehicle as the water slowly rose. In through the cracks the water poured into the vehicle. But it wasn't water. It was Grimm worms and centipedes. Tiny and crawling over each other as they spilled through the air vents and came inside. _

_The car slowly sank and the bugs came twisting and sliming their way towards me. _

_"Just fucking take me," I told the dream._

_The centipedes were up to my ankles now, slithering over my body and crawling their way inside. _

_"It's not real. You'll wake up any minute now," I tried to remind myself. It didn't help much. I was in agony. _

_They crawled through my skin on dozens of legs. Slowly making their way up my waist as the car I was in sanking slowly and inexorably down into the murky depths. I could see nothing out the windows. _

_The bugs made their way over my shoulders until only my head remained. I tilted my head back up to try and stay out of reach of them but they piled on top of one another as they made their way inside. _

_They reached my lips and I held my breath and closed my eyes. _

I woke up with a gasp. I was alone in my room at Atlas Academy. There were no bugs. I was safe. Or as safe as I ever was with Mother knocking on my figurative door day and night.

I was shaking and couldn't stand as I tried to leave my bed. Phantom pains wracked my body. From the head down I was in unbearable pain. My nerves pulled and twitched. My whole body was malfunctioning as I spasmed.

I didn't scream. I collapsed out of my bed with a gasp and landed on the hard floor. I crawled my way to the bathroom and shower. My body shivered all the while and I was sweating hard.

I crawled on my belly to the shower and disrobed with tremoring arms and legs. I turned it on and sat in the warm shower, letting the heat pour over me. I trembled in the shower under the water.

I tried to shake it off, tried to recover, but the dream stayed with me as I layed on the shower floor. I rubbed my face with my hands.

The medication was just not hitting my dreams. And I doubted they ever would. These were messages from Mother to my subconscious. It was a sign of her presence in my mind. She was there. Like a shark, shifting just beneath the surface.

I eventually mastered enough of myself to leave the shower on my two legs. I dried myself off briskly. I walked to a drawer in my room by the bed and pulled it open. It was full of little pill bottles. I read through the labels for a moment and pulled one open and popped a tablet under my tongue to dissolve.

I let it happen and relaxed into the sweet taste of the powdering pill.

It was one of the tranquilizers to help me relax. I was taking about six of them a day. My doctors wanted me to be at zero. The medication was addictive even at low dosages. But I needed them for the panic and what I was starting to suspect were small seizures related to the fear. The shaking was just too much. It made me feel epileptic, even.

There came a knock by my door. A crisp sound. I walked up and paranoia made me check the peephole. It was Weiss. I swung the door open.

"Weiss," I greeted.

"Cloud," she returned. "I heard the water running through the walls." They'd gotten me a room next to team RWBY's. "I wanted to check on you. It's the middle of the night. What are you doing in the shower?"

"Why are you up?" I asked. I dodged her question for a moment. I stood aside to let her in. She stepped inside with her hair drawn mid back height and down around her shoulders. Her blue eyes were like crystal in the dull, low light.

"I sometimes read late into the night on my scroll. It's a bad habit to have but it's one of my vices. Are you alright?"

"Just another nightmare. Moth-Salem related. I think. I can never be one hundred percent sure. I had to crawl to my shower I was shaking so bad."

"Shaking? From what?"

"The fear. The loss of control over my nerves. Take your pick."

"I didn't realize it was still so bad. I thought the medication was supposed to help."

"They are. But the shaking was pretty bad." I took a moment and breathed. "You know what?" I asked.

"What's that?" She asked. Concern written blatantly on her face.

"I've lived a while and been around and I think untreated PTSD and depression can cause mini-strokes. Or mini-seizures."

"Don't stop talking there for the lords' sake!" She looked horrified.

"What else is there to tell? I think I'm going through it. Or it could just be Salem related or have to do with how I was grown. If I have serious brain damage as a result of one or both of those, I wouldn't be surprised."

"Did you take anything to help with it?"

"I just took one of the tranquilizers they prescribed."

"But you're not resting well," she concluded. She paced over and sat on my bed. She tapped next to her and indicated for me to join her.

I nodded and sighed but did, placing myself down beside her.

"Sleep is when I'm vulnerable. It's when she gets me," I informed her with a shaking voice.

"You need to sleep," she murmured gently.

"You don't think I know that?" I spat the words out. "Sorry. Sorry. It's just frustrating. You don't deserve that."

"When was the last time you got some real rest?" She wondered with a simple, minute nod to accept my apology.

"I've been double dosing on those tranquilizers at night. It's been helping a little," I informed her. I rubbed at my temple with my thumb and forefinger.

"Should you be abusing your meds?" She asked.

"It's not my fault. My meds abused me first. They all have side effects. All of them. And then they prescribe me something to deal with the side effects which in turn has its own side effects. It's a spiral but it's my brain that's being fucked up. And some of them have addictive properties in league with hyper. I can't miss a dose of some of them without going through miniature withdrawals. Suicidal thoughts are the best symptoms of that withdrawal I can hope for, there are worse ones. Ones that are indistinguishable from my symptoms."

"Is it really so bad?"

"It's not great."

"You always say you're doing alright," she whispered.

"I am alright. This is alright for me now. This what that looks like."

"Alright is mini-strokes and seizures?"

"Maybe " I shrugged. "Don't tell Ruby."

"Why not?"

"She'll just worry over me. No reason to cause her undue distress. This is just what I am now."

"I think she deserves to know. So we can make a decision together. The three of us can make a decision about your health together. You're not alone," she promised me. She reached out and took both of my hands. All but forcing me to look her in the eye.

"Like what? Putting me back in a hospital?" I asked.

"If that's what it takes for you to get better, what's wrong with that?"

"They'll take my weapon. Again. They'll take my weapon again and they'll lock me up, for who knows how long."

"Does your therapist know? About all this?" She wondered.

"I've been telling her everything. Even about my creation."

"That couldn't have been easy. That was very brave of you."

"I don't want to be pitied. You should get that."

"You don't have my pity. I admire your strength," she whispered back. She put her arm on the middle of my back. "You're sick. Not weak."

I laughed a little and she looked at me concerned. "I'm not going to get better from this. What Salem is doing to me is for keeps. This shit is eternal. Brain damage is permanent damage."

"You can fight her," Weiss vowed at me with big blue eyes. Her silvery hair strewn out behind her head in a curtain.

"Hardly. She's so… so big. And I'm so small. I'm like a dog to her. I feel like a dog or like… like some kind of puppet."

"Cloud, you've already done so much. I believe in you. Even changing your name."

"Symbolic and nothing more, that is. It changes nothing. She still has me."

"It isn't symbolic. You're beating her. You've been winning. You kept the relic safe. You killed Tyrian. You did what you could. And you fight so awake!"

"I feel half asleep all the time. I'm so doped up just to stay functional. I don't even know what it means to be awake."

"I don't know what to say. You seem to be okay during waking hours."

"I'll be fine. I'm still waking from that dream. Plus I've got somebody to complain at and that's only revving me up."

"Would you rather I left?" She wondered.

"No. No, not that. I'm not going to get any sleep so if you weren't here I'd just be alone. Awake and alone."

She held my hand in a tight squeeze. "I'm here for you, Cloud. Anything you need. I can help you as much as you want me to."

"You're already helping me. Just… thanks for listening. And for coming to check on me," I said.

"Of course," she whispered. She gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead. She ran one hand through my hair against the back of my head.

I leaned my head down into her lap and let her strike at my long blonde fronds.

"Ruby and I are always here for you. You're doing so well. We're so proud of you and the steps you've been willing to go to get better."

"Talking about me behind my back again?" I wondered.

She laughed. A quiet peaceful noise in the emptiness of my room. "Not so much. But we both are. I know she is. And I am too."

"She's going to be the death of me, Mother is."

"Salem." She softly corrected me.

"Salem." I agreed. I groaned as she pulled her fingers through my hair. Her cool fingers touched my scalp. She tasted like something creamy and smooth through the space between us. Her dull white aura tasted delicious. So tranquil. It went down easily.

"You're so strong. You've grown so much. You're so mature and you seem so ready and responsible for whatever may happen."

"I'm not. It's fake. It's fake pressure." I exhaled into her lap.

"You are. I can see it. You can't hide it from me," she murmured. "It's why, well, it's why I think I started to fall for you. You were already like that in Mistral. Before."

"Before I knew what I was."

"No one thinks less of you for your origins but you," she purred at me. "Ruby and I adore you."

I breathed hard.

"It's only you that thinks that way. Ruby and I have no intention of abandoning you. We'll help you get through this if you let us. I understand if you have to do it alone. But don't suffer in silence on our account. We're here for you," she breathed. "I'm here for you. I trust you."

I kissed her. Low and silky. She bent down slightly over my lips. I sat up slightly and put an arm around her and the other on the inside of her thigh. She let out a shuddering breath as I did. I squeezed her leg and she shifted to rub her thighs together.

Her full lips and the pout of them ran against my tongue and she tasted like some sort of cream pie. Like a custard. Smooth. Sugary. Sweet. A flavor I was liable to gulp down.

I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her down onto me. She straddled me in her nightwear. The thin pants she wore did remarkably little at the range we found ourselves at with her legs on either side of my waist. Her breath came low and fast through her nose and she mewled quietly against me. I bit her lip and she let out a very feminine meek sound.

"Hah…hah..." She panted. "Ah."

The tips of her breasts swelled through her nightgown. I released her for a moment and she leaned back and flicked her platinum hair over her shoulder and out of her pretty face. Her eyes glowed down at me. Soft and blue. There was a heat in them that was difficult to describe.

"I've always wanted you," I panted up at her. "Always."

Her breath hitched slightly at my words and she descended back down in me. Her tongue wrestled with mine before they parted ways to examine the others' mouth. Her tongue was smooth and it glid along my teeth softly. It explored me carefully. Her hips rocked against me and she let out a quiet purr as she ground her pelvis downwards into my shorts.

I groaned. My hands came up behind her to grab her rear and pull her down onto me.

"Wait," she breathed. "Wait."

"Me wait?" I asked like the dumbass caveman I was. "You're on top of me."

She beat my hard chest with a tiny, tiny fist. "You know what I meant. This isn't what I came in here for." The effect of her hitting me was ruined when her hand turned flat and wound up stroking my firm pectoral with the whole of her small hand. Her palm rubbed from my collar all the way to my sternum.

Her other hand descended and came against my barrel of a stomach. She traced her fingers under my shirt and against my skin.

"Plans change." I gave her firm butt a squeeze through her night clothes and her breath hitched again quietly above me. Her pale lips parted in two for a quiet gasp.

"Not like this. I want Ruby to be there for it when we do… when we do anything," she decided on her phrasing.

"Then let's not do anything like that," I agreed with her.

"We already kind of are," she disagreed.

She ground her hips down onto me to prove the point and she made me gasp. I looked into her eye and I could see her desire to do it again. She wanted me to make that noise again. I wanted her to do it again too.

"We don't have to do anything more than what we are," I amended.

She traced her hand further under my shirt and splayed her fingers against my ribs. I groaned into her touch.

"You have so many scars." She pulled my shirt up and examined my chest. "These ones," she stroked across my upper chest and lower stomach. I shuddered and got goosebumps. "Were from Tyrian," she continued. "What about this long one?" Her fingers lined up over my new addition. The laceration under my ribs left behind by a blade of energy.

"Taurus. Adam Taurus. He cut me with his semblance. It glanced off my armor, got me there."

I sat up and pulled my shirt all the way off rather than leave it halfway on. She looked at me and blushed like a virgin.

"Better?" I asked.

She nodded. She reached out tentatively and touched me. "Tyrian really did a number on you, didn't he?"

"He almost killed me. Turned my chest into hamburger for a bit there. Ruby had to run me back to town and get me stitched up. She thought I was going to die."

"You've been through a lot."

"And it all keeps coming"

"Which is how I know that you can get through this. Ruby and I trust you with our lives."

"You shouldn't, that's a mistake."

"Maybe. But it's my decision. No one else gets to make it for me. I trust Ruby and I trust you. Try and get some sleep, Cloud. I won't go anywhere."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	72. Flower Girl VIII

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Ruby PoV)

"You spent the night in _his _room," Blake told Weiss as she rejoined us.

"He had nightmares that kept him up. Dreams from Salem," Weiss responded. "Nothing happened."

"I gave it away to Adam too soon. I regret it."

"Nothing happened," Weiss repeated.

"And our Cloud isn't like your Adam," I said. "I don't regret having sex with him the times that I did. It was wonderful. If something happened between Weiss and him, it's not like what happened between you and Adam."

"And I'm telling you nothing happened anyways. I set boundaries and he respected them," Weiss said.

"He never did that at Beacon," Yang tossed in. "He was always all over you."

"He was a newborn at Beacon. And it was never as bad as I made it seem," Weiss defended. "He was always polite and… _he_ _was afraid_. It was a first crush and it was never like what Blake must have gone through. Jaune, when he was Jaune, pressured me into going to the movies, not even close to sex. I think he would have been scared of something like that."

"So what did you get up to, then?" Yang asked. She sounded bored.

"He told me a bit about what his new meds were like. How they all had side effects and he was on some just to treat the side effects of others. He said he felt doped up all the time," Weiss answered. "He said he felt half asleep."

"That's no good if he gets in a fight," Yang muttered.

"Cloud is skilled. He should be fine," I defended.

"I don't know. I'm worried about him, Ruby," Weiss said. "His nightmares are bad. And Salem is always trying to press on his mind."

"So what should we do? It's not like we can kill Salem. She's invincible, or close to it," I murmured.

"Does Cloud know that?" Blake asked. "I wouldn't tell him. He might decide to kill himself if he thought it was hopeless. He told me he tried it after he killed Ren and Nora."

"He tried to kill himself?" Weiss asked, astonished.

"You didn't know?" Blake returned. "He mentioned it to me when we talked about Adam."

"No, I didn't know." Weiss shot a look back through the door she came through, she looked like she might go back to him.

"Maybe we should talk to him," I managed.

"You haven't been able to help him yet," Blake muttered.

"Blake! Who's side are you on?" Weiss asked.

"His, evidently. I think he agrees with me about him," Blake returned. "I think he knows his situation is hopeless."

"He's not hopeless. He's resisting her," I said.

"How long can he keep that up?" Blake wondered. Her palms outstretched. "Even he doesn't think he can last forever against her, does he?" She shot the last bit to Weiss.

"He thinks it's permanent brain damage. He thinks he's having seizures or strokes," Weiss said. "He thinks she'll get to him. Especially while he's sleeping."

I chewed on my lip. "So what do we do? Send him back to the hospital?" I wondered.

Weiss winced. "Cloud won't like that. They took his weapon away last time. He doesn't want to go back and 'get locked up.'"

"Should he even have his weapon?" Yang asked. We all looked at her. "Well should he? He's a little fucked up."

"When he killed for the first time, I was so worried about him. It doesn't seem like he's slowed down since then. It's all been a blur," I said. "I was so worried. I thought I messed everything up. But what if this has just been in him. Festering beneath the surface. He's been sick."

"He is. I hoped that we would be able to take care of him. Are we going to give that up?" Weiss asked.

"I don't know. What do we do, Weiss?"

"Me? I have no idea."

"You've always been the smart one."

"So I should know what to do about this?" She shook her head. "I have no clue. He's in a lot of pain. All the time."

"Well, where is he now?" I asked.

She pointed back at the door she came through. "He's getting ready for another day. I don't know if he has an assignment or if he's just slated for training."

"We should be too," Blake said. she got up and began pulling her nightwear off. "I'm sure he has his head in the game."

"Blake is probably right." Weiss slunk inside and began to strip out of her clothes too. "Maybe we'll get lucky and only have training today. She stripped down to her brassiere before I looked away.

_Bad bi thoughts. Now is not the time. _

I dressed supernaturally fast and was waiting for Cloud outside of his room for when he was ready in just a few minutes.

He strode from his room looking tall, dark, and handsome. His massive blade was in its harness behind his back.

"Ja-Cloud, Weiss told me a bit about what you're going through with your meds. I just wanted you to know I'm here for you. If you needed anything."

He looked surprised. His eyes flickered over my head towards my room for a moment. Then they came back to me. "I know Ruby. It's just Salem. She's always on me."

"Cloud… I talked to Ozpin… I wanted to let you know that Salem is invincible."

"Immortal," he corrected. "Not invincible."

"You knew?" I asked.

"It's what I asked the relic of knowledge. How to defeat her, I mean. I have a plan. I'm going to cut her into pieces and never ever give her the chance to heal."

"You think that will work?" I wondered. My gaze brushed over his bronze and white sword.

"It's worth a shot. If not I'm doomed."

"You're not doomed. And you're not… you're not thinking about killing yourself, are you?"

He sighed. He met my eye. "Don't freak out on me Ruby."

"I won't." I vowed.

"I'm always thinking about killing myself. It seems like the fastest way to get away from her."

My mouth dropped open. "Cloud…"

"Other times it seems like exactly what she wants. I have no idea what to do."

"You're not going to hurt yourself, are you?" I pleaded and begged.

"Probably not today."

"Cloud…" I murmured.

"It has nothing to do with you, or how great you are to me." He pulled his hand down and cupped my cheek. "It all has to do with her. With my mother. Her control over my mind isn't simple. She is constantly attacking my subconscious. That's what makes it hard to resist. If I'm paying attention it's easy enough for the most part, but I have to constantly be afraid of what's slipping through the cracks. Like calling her my mother, for one. That's constantly coming through, no matter how hard I try. I have to be afraid of what else is happening like that."

"She is your mother," I whispered.

"That's not why I call her that, though." He sighed and shifted. He grabbed the hilt of his weapon for a long moment. Like he might draw it. But against what? It was just him, I, and his loud thoughts in a long corridor.

He released the long red handle and sighed. He rubbed his face hard.

"Weiss mentioned you were having strokes and seizures."

"I asked her not to share that with you…"

"What? Why?" I had to wonder. My heart broke a little.

"I didn't want to worry you. This is normal for me now. I was worried it would break your little Ruby heart."

"Too late…" I grumbled. "You should know you can share anything with me."

"You're right. Of course you're right. And you'd be right to be worried about me. Something is happening to me that I can't understand."

Weiss, Blake, and Yang walked out of our room but only Weiss walked over to us.

"You told her about the seizures," Cloud commented.

"Of course," Weiss said. She crossed her arms. "It was never up for a discussion."

"Fair enough," Cloud whistled. "Fair cop."

"Blake mentioned you tried to kill yourself," Weiss went on. "But you didn't feel like sharing that with us."

Cloud scratched the back of his head. "It slipped my mind amongst everything else."

"Uh huh," Weiss muttered tursley. Her expression made it clear that wasn't going to fly. "Are you forgetting anything else?"

I crossed my arms beside her but I don't think I managed to direct the same amount of disappointment at him as she did.

"I promise to tell at _least_ one of you if I remember," Cloud vowed.

"At least one of us?" Weiss asked. She leveled her glare at him and narrowed her nostrils in his direction.

"Both of you, then." Cloud agreed. "And the moment I remember."

"That's how things need to be for this to work," Weiss said.

"You got it." I thought Cloud might salute at her but that would be just a bit much.

"Look I don't want to be the bad guy here," Weiss murmured. "But this needs to be ironed out."

"You're not. It's on me. Pinkie swear," Cloud seemed all onboard.

Weiss sighed. "We're worried about you. We don't know how to help you."

"I think that no one can. And I resent putting you in that position."

"We want to be in that position," I said softly. "We want to try our hardest to help you."

Cloud looked stunned. His jaw worked for a moment while he tried to figure out something to say. "You're right. I'm sorry. You of all people I shouldn't be cutting out like that. I just don't know what to do. And I'm scared. I'm scared that there's nothing you can do."

"Let us try," I whispered.

He reeled back like I struck him across the face. He flinched back and had trouble meeting my eye.

He gave a slow firm nod of assent. It couldn't be mistaken for anything else. He was giving his word that he would do what he could to help us help him.

"Now," I said with all that cleared up. "Do you need to go back to the hospital?"

"I don't know. They weren't the most helpful. They took my weapon away. They take everything away. There's nothing to do but wait for my next meal. It makes me feel like a dog."

"You're not a dog," Weiss murmured.

"I am to Salem," he countered. "She's so old and strong. I'm like a dog to her if she's like a person to me."

"Is anything getting better on your medication?" I asked.

"Maybe the hallucinations but it's hard to tell." He rubbed his face with his hand. "There's not exactly a good reference frame for it. How loud they are. How _intense_ they are."

"How many medications are you on at this point? You said they kept prescribing things."

"Four. Two tranquilizers, an antipsychotic, and some other one that's supposed to help with racing thoughts and tremors caused by the others."

"Is that a lot?" I asked Weiss with a look.

"I don't know," Weiss muttered. "I'm not a psychiatrist."

"They want to get me down to just two medications. They're still experimenting with what works and what doesn't. Some of the medications can make things worse more than they make things better. It's not exact and I just have to trust that they know what they're doing."

"Maybe we need to get a second opinion," Weiss crossed her arms. "Maybe we need to talk to a private provider."

"That means telling them my story again, and it'll take time."

"And it will cost money," I said.

"Money isn't a problem. I have some bank accounts from when I stole from people on the wrong side of the law with millions of Lien, still," Cloud said.

"Who'd you steal that from?" Weiss asked.

"Don Corneo. Then I killed him. Neo and I did. I still have those private bank accounts, they didn't take them from me when I was arrested. Didn't know that they existed."

"Hang in there, Cloud. We'll find something that works for you," Weiss murmured. "It can and will get better."

"I just… I just don't think we will. Don't think it will. Mother's hooks are in me deep. And if this is all I have to look forward to, maybe I should kill myself."

"Don't think that way," I pleaded.

"I am thinking that way. All the time. I can't help it," he muttered. "I obsess about it. Part of why I think maybe she wants me to do it. She told me to run away, in a whisper, once. This is the ultimate form of that. I'm terrified that if I try and kill myself I won't die and I'll become even more of a burden on you both."

"Holy shit," I breathed, eyes wide.

"Let's get that second opinion. It's a good place to start," Weiss said. "Then we'll see. Just… just don't do anything rash."

He gave us a shaky but agreeable nod.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"How's your boyfriend and girlfriend?" Penny asked as the truck hummed along.

"We had a date that went well the other day. All three of us. But… but Weiss and I are worried about him. I worry about him all the time. He has all these dark thoughts. Remnants of what Salem did to his mind," I answered. "I don't know how to help him. He's struggling and I'm not sure how to reach him."

"Well what did Salem do to him?"

"She took over his mind. He says she spoke and he had to obey."

"Like he was programmed to?" She asked. I looked at Penny. She was a machine for all that she was a real person too, maybe she had some insights I was lacking because of how she was made. "I'm slated for a sparring match with him later this week. His powers make it so that he might be able to keep up with me and present me a real one on one challenge. My abilities often make it difficult for an individual to contest me alone. Ironwood said to treat it like I was fighting Cinder Fall because of how he might have magic. It might be my best chance to practice against such a foe until Winter becomes the new winter maiden."

"That's…" I paused. I hadn't had the chance to go up against him myself any time recently. Not since before Weiss and Yang showed up in Mistral. "I should spar with him too. We always used to back in Anima. I miss it." I shook those thoughts off. "And he says his subconscious is always under her attack. He's afraid of what might be coming through when he's not paying attention. And even when he is sometimes things slip past him."

"He's on a medication regiment, yes?"

I nodded. "But he's not sure how well it's working."

"If I found out I was programmed to do something I hated I'm not sure how I would respond," Penny said. She shook her head slightly. "It would make me sad to say nothing else. And he killed his friends. I can only imagine how hard that would be."

I nodded. "But Salem hasn't had any control over him since then."

"That he himself knows of. If I was programmed against my will I don't know that I would notice it. Would I? Could I? Perhaps that's what he's afraid of. He might be afraid of doing her will unknowingly."

"He said that about killing himself. That he wasn't sure if he would just be playing into her hands if he did take his life. It's… it's too scary to think about. What if I lost him again? It would be my own fault."

"No one would hold you responsible. Salem is a monster. And she's doing something horrible to him. She's hacking his brain."

"Is there any way I can keep him safe? He doesn't sleep well. He says he's vulnerable to her while he does."

"He's probably right. And sleep is a time for the brain to repair itself. Has he suffered any other brain trauma related phenomena?"

"He thinks he's having miniature strokes and seizures because of it."

"Ruby… this sounds bad," Penny confessed to me. "It sounds like she's winning. Slowly but surely. She's breaking him down into what she wants him to be. If he was a machine like me it would be fast but this wetware attack is slow going."

"What do I do, Penny? How do I save him from this?"

"I'm not sure that you can, it sounds like he must fight as well as he is able against her attacks. For as long as he is able."

The truck rolled along for a quiet moment.

"He has sisters, right? They might be able to shed some light on this. The successful models may know more," Penny murmured.

"They work for Salem. She has them too."

"Ruby…"

I felt like crying. I felt so utterly helpless. How could I possibly save him from this… this nightmare he lived in.

"I'm going to be there for him. Whatever he needs. I won't let him lose himself. Not over to Salem."

"Ruby I think… I think you should start to let go. Remember him how he was, before it's too late. Before she takes him."

"I'm not going to give up on him. I refuse to abandon him." I was adamant.

"I think you're going to hurt yourself. I hate to see you this way."

"Weiss and I will come up with a plan to keep him safe."

"It doesn't sound like you can. He's being hacked remotely. Not unless you kill Salem. Stop things at the source."

"We can't kill her. She's immortal. Like Ozpin." It was so unfair. It felt like checkmate five turns ago. "I won't let him walk through hell. I would lose myself for him."

"Ruby…"

"I mean it. If I have to fight Salem herself I will. Cloud says he knows where she is all the time. Like some kind of radar. We can find her and beat her. She's only immortal. Not invincible. That's what Cloud said. I'm going to help him cut her into tiny pieces so she can never harm a hair on his head again."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	73. Flower Girl IX

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Ruby PoV)

"Spar with me," I ordered Cloud when I found him in the evening. He looked up at me in surprise from where he sat at the dining hall table. "Please. Like we used to."

He sighed. "Can I at least finish digesting first?" He asked.

"Oh. Right." I suppose that was fair. I'd ambushed him a little.

"The doctors are insisting that I get three meals a day. Keeping my brain fed the proper nutrition," he said. "It's about repair and regrowth."

"But you're not sleeping well."

His eyes flicked away. "No. I suppose not."

"Penny said that's an important time for the brain to repair itself."

"Been talking with Penny about me?"

"She's my friend," I defended.

He raised his hands in surrender. "No judgement. Just curious."

"Yeah. I was talking to her during my mission today a little."

"I see. What was the mission?"

"Parts transfer for Amity." I slid into a seat at the table next to him. "Did you have a mission today?"

"Searching and destroying Grimm out in the tundra. Some bigass Goliaths were encroaching on Mantle. They needed somebody who can hit as hard as I can."

"Did anything interesting happen?"

"Nothing me and Limit Breaker couldn't handle."

"They usually have you deploy a landing strategy out there in the tundra."

"Limit Breaker. It's my go to for all my problem solving." He smiled. "I can glide pretty well when it's active. Not unlike you." He poked my side where he knew I was ticklish and I flinched to cover my ribs with my arms and let out a giggle.

"You should see some of the things I can do with Petal Burst now," I said with a smile.

"More of your usual bullshit, I suspect. You always did cheat."

"Hey, you and your semblance are in my ballpark now," I protested.

"My semblance doesn't make me invulnerable the way yours does. I have to work hard to give that impression."

"That why you always keep it almost charged? All the time?" I wondered.

"Maybe I'm a little paranoid," he agreed. "Sue me. I've got a lot to be paranoid about." He gave me a genuine smile that warmed my heart while I looked up at him. I reached out and stroked his hair and he leaned into my touch with a tired sigh.

I giggled up at him. Then I gave him a kiss that squashed out noses together. I really had missed him so much while he was gone. It was good to have him back. So good. I looked forward to the next chance I could get some genuine alone time with him. And Weiss if she wanted to be involved in that. I think she would.

I didn't mind sharing that kind of thing with her.

"Well alright. No sense delaying any longer." He slid off the bench and ruffled the part in my hair. I glowered at him with a smile and fixed my head dressing.

"You ready for a fight?" I asked. I slid off the bench and made to keep up with him.

"Are you? I'm going to knock you flat, Rubes."

"I'd like to see you try. We'll see if you can touch me." I used to beat him handily. Now… now I wasn't sure. He'd grown so much since even before Mistral.

I held his whole arm and skipped to the arena to keep up with his long gait.

It was late on a Monday so nobody else was using the room. Cloud strode in and spun his sword from the harness on his back in the broadsword form. I once demolished him with his weapon in that stance.

He carefully checked the tip of the weapon with his fingers. Drawing it back with his right hand and stretching out his left to brush off some Grimm ash that remained on the tip.

Crescent Rose unfolded from my back and I rolled it around hand over hand in his direction. I twisted the weapon behind my back and held it there until he looked over at me and gave me a firm nod.

He activated his semblance immediately because he was a cheater like that. And he dashed forward on a pocket of air with both hands on his weapon, holding it just before his shoulder. He had one leg bent at the knee and the other straightened out as he flew.

He swung in a low horizontal cut at me. I blocked with the blade of Crescent Rose but the attack sent uncomfortable vibrations all the way up my arm. He was truly unbelievably strong. If I was going to beat him it was going to be with my speed.

He flicked his blade out the other direction. I vanished in a blur of petals and popped back a step for a moment and leveled my weapon at him. I shot him once in the stomach and he grunted. He lowered his blade to block the next shot.

He was on me in a blue haze. He tried to hit me again but I met his strike. Then I expanded the blade of Crescent Rose backwards to make it longer. It forced him back an awkward half step.

I capitalized and slashed at him three times, spinning my blade up and around my body as I did.

He came back on me but I blew apart into three red caped swirls of red and nearly teleported behind him. I made to cut at him but he kicked me in rapid succession and brought his blade around down onto me.

I blocked high and pulled the trigger on my weapon to give us some horizontal momentum. I'd been ready for it and he hadn't and it pulled him off to the side.

I slashed at him twice with the blade and he knocked both attacks to the side fairly easily like he was still warming up.

I burst forward then back and caught him in the front then in the back. He grunted under the blows twice and though he stumbled he didn't look particularly hurt.

I twirled around in a circle and tried to catch him with the fully unfolded blade. He blocked alarmingly easily and riposted. He thrust his blade forward, then upwards in a massive flying leap.

Then he came back down on me from above with all the weight of his sword and armor and him. I burst into petals rather than take the hit. I reentered the same space I exited and kicked out with one of my legs. He blocked it on the side of his own.

He very rudely made to drive his elbow into my face. It snapped my head back. Then he brought his blade forward in slashing motion with the tip buried in the ground and slammed it into the whole of my body. His blade was taller than me, even held at an angle like it was.

He tried to open me up and combo me but I burst apart once more and flowed back together behind him. "Almost," I said. I wrapped Crescent Rose around his waist and fired to jerk the blade backward against his body.

It caught him and made him stumble back, ripping into his golden aura. Then he whipped around and went for his Cross-Slash. The first hit struck me in the stomach but I vanished out of the way of the following attacks.

He danced back a step. He was now in his limited state. He immediately flexed and started to charge the next round of his semblance and I took that as my cue to attack. His semblance forced you to approach him. To play his game. I pulled Crescent Rose over my shoulder. Then across my stomach, then around behind my back and in a twirling fashion over my head.

Cloud deftly blocked each one of my attacks and rather than riposte he stuttered back a step and went for his semblance again.

I whipped the barrel of my weapon up at him and fired at him three times in rapid succession. He dived into a hovering roll but not to the side or backwards. He dived towards me. His right hand held his weapon up behind his body easily enough and his left came up and forward to grab me. He snatched me by the neck of my cape and yanked me into the air like a brute. He made to slam me into the ground but I vanished again, I left him with only a palm full of petals.

Each time I disappeared it cost me something. I wasn't sure if that was his plan, to bleed me dry but it might just work.

He flirtatiously sniffed the petals for a moment in his hand before he blew them at me. I blushed a little but resolved to not let him distract me. Or to try not to. He was distracting enough without trying as it was.

He jumped and brought his weapon down in a massive overhead strike. I vanished rather than take that one either.

He guessed where I was going to reappear and trapped me in an attack that swung upwards and knocked me into the air. When I made to dodge in mid-air he read my dodge attempt and was waiting for me with a swing at the ready.

He hit me three times in the span of a tenth of a second. I yelped as I was flung into a pillar of cubes.

"You alright Rubes?" He called over to me. I was struggling to get up for a moment. I didn't have the most aura in the world. He had spades more than I did. That last attack did something like twenty five percent of my aura in one go. He was really strong.

I picked myself up and blew my hair out of my face with a pfft upwards and to the side. I pointed the business end of my weapon at him in response and shot at him four times. The first one hit him in the chest and gave him his semblance. The next three went wide as he suddenly blurred to the side. My shots went wide because of it and he started to close the gap on me incredibly quickly.

He flickered into my range and caught my whole body up in a massive upwards swing. He followed it up by juggling once. Then he let me down rather than spending the remainder of our match hammering me while I was in the air above him.

I quickly moved in on him and pulled Crescent Rose across my body and at him. Then from another side. Then I spun and tried to hammer him with the blade.

He reached out and caught the long handle of my weapon and picked me up into the air with it using one hand. I kicked him in the chest but he mostly looked bemused.

"This is serious," I protested. He wasn't taking me honestly!

"You're seriously cute." He countered. He had a wide grin on his face. "You're just not strong enough yet. We should do weights together."

I blushed at the thought of Cloud in tight workout clothes and doing exercises together. It sounded good to me.

He bent in and kissed my cheek before I could react.

I let go of my weapon and punched him in the chest. It did nothing.

He kicked me and made my aura collapse inwards with a crackle of red. He inhaled deeply, like he was enjoying the smell.

I rose with a tired sigh and he came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. I jerked back like I was going to resist but then he kissed my neck and I let out a little moan. He ran his lips over to my jawline.

"Your sweat tastes delicious," he whispered right into my ear.

I shuddered. I tried weakly to push away from him. "You're cheating."

"No. This is cheating." He poked my sides with fingers while I was tight in his grasp and without aura to spend to get away and I laughed hysterically as he tickled me. He spun me around and he kissed my lips full on. I dissolved into the kiss with a little sigh. My eyes fluttered closed.

"Cloud…" I mewled against his lips. "We should stop. We're in public." I pushed against his rock hard chest weakly.

"We don't have to be." He released me, twirling me away from him like we were dancing. "You tease."

"Me?" I asked, shocked.

"In that new outfit. Absolutely. You and Weiss both." He laughed. I turned as red as my cloak.

"You're the one looking all… all like that." I pointed up at him. With his piercings and hair done up. He gave me a brilliant smile.

"Whatcha gonna do about it, little Rose?"

"I'll show you. Seriously. You look all… so hot." He kicked a leg up as he leaned against the wall with his knee out. His foot was flat against the wall and he looked like the hottest thing I'd ever seen in a man.

"Prove it," he murmured. His voice was full of an electric current. I could remember the feel of his aura smothering mine. I shuddered again. I could feel my own heartbeat between my legs.

I would prove it, damn it. Or my name wasn't Ruby Rose.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I'm going to Cloud's room for sex tonight," I told Weiss as I stepped out of our shower. "Well, we'll actually be leaving campus and finding a hotel room. The beds here are too small."

Her eyes ran up and down my figure in the tight towel. She flushed at me. Whether it was about my state of undress or how directly I came out with my plans I wasn't sure.

"I-I see. And…?"

"And is that something you'd be interested in?" I asked. She was already in her nightwear.

"Maybe…"

"Clear and effective communication, Weiss. We won't hold anything against you if you're not ready."

"I want to be ready. I'm just nervous I suppose."

I walked up to her, sashaying my hips as I did. I relished the way she watched me. Oh yeah. Weiss was bi as hell. Poor girl. Let me take care of you…

"You have nothing to be nervous about. Cloud and I will take such good care of you. He's a really attentive lover. He listens. He explores." I shuddered a little as memories ran me over. I got goosebumps as I recalled being pressed firmly against the cold tile of a shower wall. The cold of the tile and heat of his body and the water had been a stark contrast.

Then that time I rode him out in Anima. The way his body flexed under mine while we held hands was etched into my mind. His hands falling to my hips to control the pace even though I whined to be in charge. It was so domineering as he thrust up into me. So good.

Weiss took in my hardening breasts. I'd need to be careful. I just got out of the shower. I didn't need to let these thoughts overwhelm me. It was hard though.

"Well I suppose. He and I did get awfully close the other night."

"You said nothing happened," I pointed out.

"Some kissing happened. Some dry-grinding happened. But I wanted you to be there for my first time and I told him so," she informed me.

"You're such a sweetheart." I kissed her lips. She groaned a little as I pushed her back. My wet hair fell on both of our faces in a tight curtain. She went for my bottom lip but if she thought I'd bottom that easily again she'd be… oh…

I whined. I really was just a bottom in her hands. At least with Cloud I could pretend I was a switch. Even if it was only because he let me. I tried to soak that in. It was only because he allowed it.

She placed her hands on my back just above my butt through the cloth of the towel and pulled me deeper into the kiss. She put her tongue in my mouth and I wrapped my lips around it, small and pink, and gave it a tiny suck.

Her breath hitched when I did it. I sucked very gently on the tip of her tongue and welcomed more of it wiggling into my mouth. The tips of both our breasts were hardening now against one another and it felt good to pull her close.

"So…" I panted when we separated. "So will you be there?" I asked.

She rapidly nodded. She breathed hard and tried to calm herself down again too. Ha. Take that. I could kiss like nobody's business. "Is Cloud a top or…?" She asked.

"Yes. But don't worry. He'll take care of you. Between the two of us we'll find a nice place for you."

"Then I'm looking forward to it."

I squealed a little. I was going to be having sex with my best friends. I walked away from Weiss and began to put on matching underwear for the night. A nice surprise for Cloud to enjoy later. Not that he would care that much but it was the principle of preparation that was the thing.

"I think I might be a switch," Weiss mumbled. "I always thought I'd be a top but when he picked me up in the air on our date night it was just too much, he made me melt."

"That's what happens when you run into a real top. Cloud at least lets me pretend a little. But he's always the one in control. I'm not sure what it is."

"You melt is your problem. You can't be in control when you're all gooey," Weiss said.

"It just feels so good though." I whined. She gave me a dark and thirsty look when I did and a little of her own dominance showed. She had that same hunger Cloud had. "And if he says he feels like a dog we'll just remind him how much of a man he really is. I don't know how much it'll help but it'll feel good."

"For all we know we're about to cure him. A lot of chemical activity happens in the brain during sex."

"Science!" I exclaimed pointing at her. "Take that Salem." She laughed.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	74. Mesmerized II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Sex with Weiss and Ruby was awesome. Almost awesome enough to make me forget how much of a son of a bitch I was. Almost but not quite. No marks against them or their warm bodies. It was just hard for me to forget.

The sex was good was the point. Warm and wet and with our auras flaring and mixing in this wonderful stew. Weiss's creaminess. Ruby's sugar. And however my aura tasted. All stirred together as we ebbed and flowed into each other and made the others sigh in contentedness.

Weiss approached things nervous at first but her thirst came through and soon she was all over Ruby and I. We both made Ruby give her little whines. And together Ruby and I made Weiss gasp with her lips parted in something like she was surprised at how it could feel. They both made me groan. A deep noise I wasn't sure would mean much but that they were both hungry to hear more of.

We explored one another thoroughly. I found the little places that made the girls writhe.

I just couldn't forget even as I made love to them who and what I was. That sucked. It was carried with me regardless how good the release felt.

I layed in bed with a girl on each of my arms. Ruby snuggled in close to me and curled up in the crook of my arm, her head using my chest as a pillow. Her hair hung over her face as she slept with both of her arms up near her head as she curled in tight.

Weiss stretched out on the other arm away from me a little like the heat was just a little too much for her to sleep comfortably in if she came any closer but she still wanted to be in contact with me. Her lips were parted in a silent gasp as she lay in just her underwear beside me. She was beautiful. They both were. Like little angels in humanoid bodies.

They were like nothing else on the planet to me in that moment.

I reached over with one hand and ran it through Weiss's beautiful platinum locks. She moaned a little as I did and I just enjoyed the sound she made. I watched her pink lips open as the deep noise left her throat. She shifted a little, looking comfortable.

I slowly sat up, disentangling myself more from Ruby who sighed quietly in her sleep. I was sticky on my chest from sweat and the shower beckoned to me. I was in just a pair of shorts as I crossed over and left the two of them on the queen sized bed.

I checked a clock by the bed. It's digital face told me it was about four. I slept a solid six hours, then. Not so bad, for me at least.

Ruby shifted over and found a new body to cuddle up against while she slept in the form of Weiss. She wouldn't miss me while I showered.

I watched them hold one another close in my absence for a long long moment. I breathed the sight of the two women in love holding one another. It was stunning to watch. Ruby wrapped her arms close around Weiss who shifted into a more comfortable position with Weiss's arm underneath of Ruby.

It was gorgeous. And they both loved me too. I had evidence now in the form of the wet and warmth that had been wrapped tight around me. That was just as breathtaking as the sight of them. They knew who I was. They knew what I was. And they cared about me anyways. Unbelievable.

I still wasn't sure they totally got it because of that. Maybe if they'd seen the Grimm my father designed they would feel differently.

I slid into the shower and let the quiet pipes run their hot water for a moment while I undressed for the second time that night. I climbed in. I scrubbed myself down in the dull heat and let the water run down over my face.

When I got out of the shower my scroll was buzzing. I wrapped myself with a towel and made my way over to it on the dresser in the hotel room itself. I threw on some pants and stepped out into the hall to not disturb the ladies while I took the call.

"Strife," I murmured.

"It's Aurum. I got a hit on some of your names."

I took a deep breath. "Which ones?"

"Fall, Sustrai, and Black. They're all in town. Not sure where yet but I figured you'd appreciate the heads up."

"I do appreciate it. Let me know when you know more. Fall is the one that got Torchwick killed so she isn't good for your kind of business."

"I'll take your advice on that and keep my head down if she comes by."

"Sounds good. Keep me in the loop. The sooner they're dead the safer literally everyone will be."

"I will roger that, Aurum out," he cut our connection with that.

I twisted my scroll sideways and shot Neo a message.

_Cinder's in town according to Aurum. Stay frosty. _

I waited a moment and got a response.

Fair enough, Neo.

"Something interesting?" It was Weiss leaning by the door to the room we'd rented out. She breathed back a yawn.

"Criminal contact of mine spotted Fall and her gang. She's in town," I told her honestly. I shut my scroll off at that, closing the screen.

"You're always working, aren't you? Always thinking about something? I understand that. Give it up for a while more, like I am. Just come back to bed for now. Relax with us for just a little longer."

I nodded once agreeably. I stepped back inside with her. She ran her hands through my wet hair for a moment with a smile before she kissed me. Low and tender, her small smirk pressed against my lips. I groaned and she shuddered into it and I wrapped an arm around her. Her white aura flared under my golden one for a moment and I shut the door behind me gently. _Ca-thunk. _

She twisted from my grasp and took me by the hand. She reclined back on the bed and held her hands out to me with her legs spread apart slightly, her knees up and her invitation obvious. I groaned as parts of me stiffened from the view and implications.

Ruby was stirring slightly beside her with meek mewling sounds as she stretched. Weiss and I wouldn't be waking her up.

I nodded, knelt between Weiss's legs, and kissed her hard. I ground my lower body into hers and she moaned a tight hiccuping gasp.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"You should do fine against Penny. You won't hurt her, will you? She doesn't have as much aura as you do and most of her robustness comes from her mechanical nature," Weiss murmured to me as the three of us made our way to the Academy training room.

"Penny!" Ruby called out with a wave.

"Ruby!" Penny waved back. "You weren't in your rooms when I came by. Did something happen?"

"Oh it definitely did," Ruby told her in a hushed tone. "We rented out a motel room because the beds here at the academy are too small."

"Ruby!" Penny gasped sounding shocked and aghast. "I want details!" Or maybe not so aghast.

Ruby laughed at that and I cracked a small grin.

"Not too many details, I hope," Weiss murmured.

"Of course not. Just the bare minimum. I live vicariously through Ruby," Penny sang.

"Penny! You don't say things like that. Even if they're true." Ruby informed her, mollified. She dragged her hands across her cheeks downward.

"You already knew that, though. Or at least I thought you did," Penny returned.

"I did but there are principles to the thing, Penny!"

"What do you think, Cloud, Weiss?" Penny wondered.

"Girl talk," I said. "None of my business."

"Of course it's your business," Penny exclaimed. "How could it not be? You and Weiss are most of what we talk about."

"The girl talk is none of my business. Even if I'm the subject of some of it," I informed Penny.

"I never would have pegged Penny as a gossip," Weiss hid her smile behind her hand and gave a pretty giggle. It made me want to kiss her. Instead I just stared at her tiny grin.

"Is that what I am?" Penny asked. She sounded even more shocked.

"It sure sounds like it," I said. I laughed and shook my head. "You can get all the sweet, juicy details when I'm not around after we fight."

"Then I shall. Did you hear that, Ruby? I demand them."

"Her thirst knows no bounds," Weiss giggled. "Ruby and I can probably stick around for a bit but we'll have our own mission today."

"Clearing away Grimm near Mantle," Ruby agreed. "Sorry Penny. We'll have to talk later tonight."

"I can hardly wait!"

I drew the sword and shield from my back. Sliding the shield over and onto my wrist as I took a few practice swings of my longsword.

"General Ironwood says that you might have magic, like the maidens. Is that true?" Penny asked me.

"Maybe. Ozpin and I are still investigating. For now it's just my semblance and what I can do with dust," I answered. I warmed up my wrist a little more.

I'd been trying each day (except this morning, I'd been busy) to turn my needle into a feather but I hadn't had any success with it.

"We shall see if that's enough for you to overcome me," Penny said sagely and slightly somberly.

"Oh please," I told her. "You're mine. All day."

"Play nice," Ruby ordered me.

"If you insist, sweetheart." I told her. She blushed at me as red as her cape.

"If she's sweetheart then what am I?" Weiss asked.

I opened my mouth with a grin.

"If the next words out of your mouth are 'Ice Queen' then your very next words will be 'you punched me in the groin.'"

I closed my mouth still grinning.

"Princess, just because I don't say it…" Weiss did a head fake at me and I jumped back. "No? Didn't like 'princess' either?"

She frowned at me. Then she turned away, turning her nose up at me.

"I'll come up with something," I vowed. "Ruby is easier to give pet names to than you are."

"Maybe if you didn't use princess sarcastically," She said, her nose still turned up away from me. "You ruined it."

I snapped my fingers. "Dang it. So close." I was still smirking as I teased her.

She let out an exasperated sigh but I could tell she was smiling underneath. It was why she wasn't looking at me. She didn't want me to see. It was too late though. I saw everything. I could feel it through her bemused aura. "Gods…" she murmured.

"Is this how you flirt?" Penny asked. "Because I like it. It's cute."

Weiss blushed a little at that and I smiled at Penny.

"Only when she lets me," I told Penny. "Weiss is a tough nut to crack."

Weiss shoved my shoulder but her fingers lingered on my collar. "Flatterer."

"Who would want to be tough?" Ruby asked.

"Who would want to be easy?" Weiss shot back.

"Because it's sweet," Ruby let out. "It's sweet that he's trying. It's sweet when you try, too."

"He had better do more than try."

"Oh stop it. You weren't giving him that when I woke up this morning."

Weiss turned scarlet. "That's different."

"Not that different."

"Ruby!" Weiss hissed.

"What? It's just us girls?"

"And me…" I trailed. Not quite sure how to feel.

"Yeah but you were there for it. Weren't you. And I trust Penny. I tell her basically everything."

"How much is basically everything?" I asked. "Because there are some things that should remain between the three of us girls."

Ruby gave me a flat look. "You're really hung up on that."

"Kinda," I muttered.

"It's just… you know. Girl talk," Ruby defended.

"Penny?" I asked.

"Yes? Cloud?"

"What's the most risque thing Ruby has told you about?" I went on, arms crossed.

Ruby's eyes flashed over to Penny, wide and pleading.

Penny didn't get the memo from Ruby. "We once talked about the size of your-"

"Alright! Alright." Weiss cut in. She was beat red. "The three of you are children."

"I'm four," Penny chirped helpfully.

"Hey, me too." I held out my hand for a high five. She grinned and took it with a satisfying slap.

"I totally forgot about that amongst everything we did last night," Weiss muttered. "I had sex with a four year old."

"And you liked it, too," I teased. Ruby laughed.

"Cloud!" Weiss snapped, she was still flushing.

"What? _You're_ the one who took advantage of _me_. You're twenty. Be the adult."

"This is so interesting," Penny commented.

"Can you two fight now?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah. Anytime," I said. I blew my girlfriends a kiss.

Ruby mimed catching it and blew one back while Weiss muttered, "grow up." But she was still pink. She made it so easy to tease her. She turned and dragged Ruby by the hand from the arena.

"Are you good to go?" I asked Penny.

"I'm combat ready!" Blades flew from an opening in her back and began to float around her.

I twisted and struck her in the chest with a thunderbolt before she could react. She looked at me surprised and I grinned.

I palmed a gravity crystal and crushed it. I waved a hand with it and the room felt abruptly sideways. She fell to the side of the room, chased by a stack of boxes that made up the terrain. I sliced through the ones that fell at me and flew at her through the sideways room.

She began to hover with her boots emitting flames except she was hovering against the wall instead of the floor. She cut her way through several boxes and I fell through them on top of her as I flew.

She looked up at me in absolute shock as I descended on her shield first. I hit her like a meteor with my shield and slammed her into the new ground which was formerly one of the walls.

She kicked me hard in the chest and my semblance activated. I swung my sword around at her and it was met by two of hers. Several of her own blades hovered near her head and opened fire with a green laser. I back-flipped and dodged the lasers and she swept three blades up at my head. I blocked them by raising my shield.

"You fight very unorthodox," she informed me.

I pulled a crystal on her and fired three firebolts at her with a swipe of my hand.

Then I sprinted at her fast enough that my feet left the ground and I began to fly straight at her. She tried to stop me with her blades but I barrelled straight through like a bull.

I swung my sword down on her in a tremendous arc straight for her head. Blue waves ebbed off the attack as I struck with Limit in hand.

She blocked with nine of her own swords. I met her incredible strength for a long moment. Then I started to lower my blade down on her despite her raw power.

She looked at me in surprise as my blade seesawed lower onto her.

"You're not strong enough," I grunted. "You can't keep me out forever."

Three blades flickered from the side into my body and slammed me into the floor of the battlefield from the wall we stood on. I pulled myself to my feet easily. I was mostly unhurt.

I twisted my sword into my shield and drew the broadsword on her. I jumped back into her range. I blocked one flying sword. Then another. Then I front-flipped over a third and ducked beneath a fourth. Then I bladebeamed her, hovering in mid-air and sending the golden wave flowing over to her body and forcing her to sidestep.

I approached her with an enormous backflip.

Gravity reasserted itself over the room as I landed right in front of her and I slashed at her four times. She blocked them all with a combination of blades. Then she waved her hand and a column of blades chased the point of her fingers.

"I disagree," she murmured. "I'm more than strong enough for you."

I jumped and slashed straight at her head. She dived to the side in order to get out of the way. It was too fast for her to bring her blades around to stop.

She flew at me with her boots glowing with small flares of exhaust next.

I flexed to charge Limit as she approached me and I slid my shield back out of my sword. She fired a laser at me. Then another one and I blocked them both with my shield. Then she hit me like a ton of flying bricks on my shield, feet first.

I was man enough to say she hit hard as all hell. Maybe about as hard as I'd ever been hit. Or at least within recent memory.

I blocked her swords again and slashed at her head underneath my shield to try and riposte.

Then I stepped into her guard where her weapons flowed like a wavy liquid and I started to intercept them. They hammered against my shield but I met them all then I slashed at her body twice horizontally and followed it with a diagonal third.

She blocked with her weapons in front of her. But then I cut straight at her body to try and bring her down. I hit her in the stomach with my sword in a brutal swing.

She bounced hard off the ground and her aura flared over her.

"Your father can repair you when I'm done breaking you, can't he?"

"You won't break me."

"No?" I asked poignantly.

She came at me in a flying fashion. I bowed beneath a beam and dodged a flying blade and let two more bounce off my shield.

Then when she came soaring into my range I clotheslined her hard with my blade. I hit her as hard as I could and she backflipped in near place for an awful moment.

My semblance burned to life in a giant blue flame around my body as I rocked her.

She clanked against the ground and began to rise.

"Are you alright? Need me to take it easier on you?"

"Cinder won't take it easy on me."

"No she won't. But I'm not Cinder. I can take it easier on you so you learn something."

"I need you to fight me like you mean it," she demanded.

"I don't know that you can take it."

"It's what I need from you."

"Fine. Are you ready to start again?"

She nodded and before she barely even finished I hit her in the body again with a lightning bolt. It made her whole body shudder and fall to both her knees.

Then I was on her and I kicked her in the chest with a massive forward kick. It slammed her and sent her skidding across the floor.

Then I hit her with another lightning bolt, crushing a crystal in my palm and setting the energy loose.

Four of her blades flew at me and I slid between them. I could see her aura projected on a screen above us. This would be over soon.

She fired a series of lasers at my head. I ducked one and shielded another and jumped into a floating roll to avoid three more. Then another hit me in the chest but I kept moving through it.

Three blades skewered at me in succession but I kept moving. I blocked them with my shield and slashed at one of the blades with my sword. I missed the guide wires and she retracted them quickly. Her weapons weren't safe, that's what that told me.

I flew into her range and cut at her four times in a diagonal fashion followed by two wide horizontal swings. She wasn't a real swordsman. Swordswoman? She wasn't about the sword play. Not like I was.

I blocked three more of her thrusts while her fourth weapon hovered near her head and fired another green laser at me. I couldn't block all of her weapons and her laser at the same time and tried to back-flip out of the way of the laser but it caught me in the back.

I still had Limit and I acted like it. I flowed at her like water with my extreme speed. I slid on my knees and cut once before thrusting upwards at her. She blocked with a wave of her hand which her weapons mirrored.

She danced up on me with her four remaining blades flying about her. I shielded myself from two of her blades and flipped through the wires of another one. Then I glid right up to her face through a hole in her defenses and I Cross-Slashed her point blank.

Her body screeched across the ground where it skid. "Are you alright? Penny?"

"I'm okay. I think I'm out of aura, though."

"Then we're calling it." I sheathed my weapons into each other and strapped them to my back. "For now at least. We'll go again once you recover."

"What did I do wrong?"

"You didn't do anything wrong. I was too much for you. The wires on your weapons are an obvious weakness by the way. A real unscrupulous enemy will capitalize on them. Cinder probably won't cut through them like I tried but she will try and burn you. She might be able to melt them. She likes fire."

"Thank you for showing me. You used electric dust on me."

"I did. Did it hurt you? Because you're a machine?"

"It hurt because it hurt. It's lightning."

"Gotcha."

"Have you fought Cinder? How will she fight?" Penny sat up a little. She looked disappointed in herself.

"I did once. She prefers fire and wind. I almost had her, once. That was before she became spring, though. She's even more dangerous now."

"You want to kill her."

"I'm going to kill her. She killed Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos. My partner, she's the one that killed you that time you died."

"I see." She stumbled over her words for a moment. "Were you and her involved?"

"It was complicated, then she died."

"I see. And Ruby got me back but you didn't get her back."

"No. No I didn't."

"But you're with Ruby and Weiss now. Would you have been with Pyrrha if she hadn't died?"

I flinched at the horrible question, there it was naively out in the open from someone so pure. Would I have? "I...I'm not sure. I'll never be sure. Whatever we had is dead now because of Cinder."

"I think I understand." Penny got to her feet. "Ruby worries about you, you know."

"I know."

"I hate to see her that way," she complained. It was probably fair enough. I hated to see her that way, too.

"I believe you," was all I said. All I could say.

"You don't need to add to it," she protested. Her hair waved back as she turned to look at me.

"Can't help it. Maybe you'll understand one day."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	75. These Hands I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"How are you feeling today, Cloud?" Dr. Caulbaugh asked me. We were alone in a padded office. She had a plant in the corner that looked malnourished.

"I'm alright. Can't really complain." I responded. I stared at the tall plant.

"Oh I'm sure you could. How are you really doing? It's important."

"Fine. I suppose. Been getting into some missions lately. There are these two girls who have been taking care of me recently. Looking after me. They want to help but they're not sure how."

"Two other huntresses?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Two other friends?"

"We might be a bit more than friends. The three of us."

"I see. Aren't you a lucky man."

"Am I though?" I laughed a little. She looked away, a touch embarrassed.

"Yes I suppose it's maybe something to help balance out what all happened to you. Something good to come at me with rather than have everything bad." She worried the corner of her lip with her pen. "And everything is working out between the three of you."

"I think so. Except…" I gestured at the side of my head in a circular fashion to indicate my insanity.

"You're not crazy, Mr. Strife."

"Well then I'm right next to crazy, one rung above it on the ladder of sanity."

"You're too cognizant for it to be traditional psychosis. When a patient exhibits that they have no idea that they are showing symptoms of it. You're self aware of what is happening to you."

"Maybe…"

"But this relationship is working out well?" She asked.

"We had some stuff to iron out at first and get the air clear. We still are occasionally. But for the most part yeah." So far my relationship with Weiss and Ruby had been, well, it had been easy. The pieces falling together once Weiss and I talked a little about freshman year.

"Have you been able to have sex? Many patients report problems performing while on the sorts of medications we have you on."

I blushed a little. "So far it's been just fine."

"That's good news. That sort of endorphin rush can only help with depression. It can sort of clear your brain chemistry for a new wave of neurotransmitters."

I'd been kind of able to feel that. Like I was wiping away an old slate with the release. "I thought I had PTSD?" I asked.

She waggled a hand. "They often go together. Sort of a buy one get one free deal."

"But with my brain."

"It's a complex organ."

"I see…"

I looked over at her plant and thought of something else to talk about. We'd only just begun this meeting and I was already running low on topics.

"I've been thinking about getting a plant. You know? Something to take care of. It was Ruby's idea. One of those two girls. Something small and easy to take care of. Weiss, the other, was all onboard with it. I think they both think it'll be good for me."

"Been eyeing at my plant have you? I can never seem to keep any of them alive. What kind of therapist am I if I can't even keep a plant going and my patients need me for their brain?"

I laughed a little. A low chuckle. "That's how I figure mine would go. I can't even take care of myself and then I'm supposed to add something more to that. No way. Nah."

"Those are their names? Weiss and Ruby?"

I nodded. "I worry about them. I'm scared about the things that come through when I'm not paying attention while Mother assaults my subconscious. I feel like she's a shark, just waiting underneath the surface of my thoughts. And she'll spring out at some point I'll have no control over."

"Salem is constantly at your door then, so to speak. You keep calling her mother. Is that on purpose?"

"No. That keeps slipping through. No matter how hard I try that one comes through. It makes me worried about what else is slipping through the cracks on me," I said. "It's an accident. But one that I keep making."

"She is your mother though, in a way."

"Yeah but I hate her and I don't mean to call her that."

"Do you think of her as your mother?"

"At times. But for the most part I think of her as this foreign, nearly all powerful thing that has her hooks in my mind. She's no more my mother than the incubator I was grown in was."

"So she is kind of your mother."

"Kinda," I returned. "She called me her son, her child, that is. I think she thinks of me that way and it influences me."

"Do you think she loves you?" Tanya Caulbaugh asked.

I inhaled a shuddering breath. "Maybe? I have no idea. I've never really thought about that. I mostly just think about how much I hate her. And my father too."

"Merlot? Was it?"

"It was. I think I'm going to kill him if I ever meet him. Is that fucked up of me?"

"The desire to kill one's parents is not unheard of."

"Yeah but in my situation. With how I was made. Is that messed up for me to think about?" I cornered her.

"Probably less than it might otherwise be. If you grew up in a loving home then it would be different. How you were born matters to this. The things that happened to you are awful and unforgivable."

"That's what I thought…"

"Though I'd prefer it if you harbored fewer murderous thoughts. I know killing people comes up on the job but you shouldn't seek it out."

"I think about killing more than just him. There's this woman, Cinder Fall who killed my partner, Pyrrha Nikos. I want her to die too."

"Are you often consumed by thoughts of revenge like this? Between your father and this other woman it seems to be on your mind a great deal. There's this revenge piece that we're only just tapping into."

"Maybe… my friends want me to give it up. But the fact is that I'm one of the only people on the planet that can stop Cinder Fall before she strikes again. I won't say I'm doing it for a purely altruistic purpose but I am doing it for that at least in part. She'll kill people if I don't stop her and I'm one of the few that can."

"Who else could fight her? Instead of you?" She asked.

"I'm really not sure. Almost no one by themselves apart from me. I'm a menace now. I had to surrender myself to Atlas custody. They couldn't bring me in unless I wanted to. She's in a similar boat. She's very powerful. Very dangerous."

"I'm glad you decided to come in. The path you were on with the Marijuana was self destructive."

"I miss it."

"You do? The Marijuana?"

"Yeah, I doubt the girls would appreciate it if I took it up again but I do miss it. I might not get kissed as much if that was the case."

"You're not going to use on me, are you?"

I shook my head. "Nah. They took my paraphernalia. The girls did. Besides, my word of honor is good. You've got nothing to worry about."

"That's good. I'll warn you right now that THC doesn't play well with some of the other drugs you're on. It can make things so, so much worse," she said.

"Hard to imagine worse than this," I pointed out.

"How have your hallucinations been?" She wondered.

"About the same. Maybe better. It's hard to say."

"Any auditory command hallucinations?"

"Yes."

"Any visual hallucinations?" She scribbled into her notes.

"Yep," I returned.

"And tactile?"

"You bet."

"How have the nightmares been, Cloud. I know that they were worse on the Asenapine but how about on this Vraylar?"

"They've been at my normal level."

"Your normal level is pretty bad." She tapped the corner of her lips with the pen.

"Yeah. Yeah it is," I confessed. I brushed a hand back through my hair. I scratched at my scalp a little. I hated my own weakness. In many ways I was just as weak as I'd been when I first showed up at Beacon.

"We'll corner that eventually. You have my word that it does get better. I've worked with a lot of PTSD cases and I've seen a lot of ones that were worse than yours. We can get you through this."

"We'll see, Doc."

"I think that's all the time we have for today, too. I want you to think about whether it's true that only you can bring the Cinder Fall to justice or if that's a complex you've come up with to justify it to yourself."

"Very well. I will."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It didn't take me much thought about Cinder Fall to see whether I was one of the only people that can bring her down. I was. Dr. Caulbaugh didn't know about the maidens. She didn't need to know about them and since it was something on a need to know basis I hadn't shared it.

"How did therapy go, Cloud?" Ruby asked me.

"It went good. Even though I didn't have time to practice my lines for it."

Weiss did that thing where she hit me disapprovingly but her fingers lingered at my chest. I loved that. I loved when she did that. It just made me want to say more things she'd disapprove with. "You're not supposed to 'practice your lines.' You're supposed to share just whatever with them."

"Would you be able to? Just go in raw like that?"

"Well…" Weiss trailed. "Your phrasing is a little… I could maybe…"

"See that's what I thought," I said. I took a bite out of an apple at that.

My stomach felt small but my doctors were insisting that I at least eat something three meals a day so I was snacking a little rather than have a full meal. Hey, it was the thought that counted.

I reclined back on my bunk in Atlas Academy. My point proven.

Ruby plopped down on my legs in the bunk. She rubbed a hand up and down on my leg contentedly. "Are you coming with us to dinner?"

"I got my dinner right here." I twisted the apple at her.

"The doctors say-" Weiss started.

"-the doctors say a lot of things. I'm fuckin' tryin' here." I twisted the apple at her next and took another bite to prove my new point. "I figure I'll leave you to Yang and Blake. I'm tired of coming between your team. I'll give this evening over to them."

"Hey, you don't come between our team," Ruby said softly, still rubbing at my leg in a comforting fashion.

"It's not that I don't believe you Ruby. It's that I can't believe you," I returned. "'Sides I should spend some time trying to turn this needle into a feather."

"Is that what you're doing with that?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah. Why?" I asked.

"I just thought you liked to stare at it," Ruby muttered. She was adorable. I reached out and brushed some hair behind her ear and she leaned into my touch like a kitten. She fluttered her eyes closed and let out a little sigh. I leaned all the way up and gave her a quick kiss.

"Please just come to dinner. Let us worry about how Blake and Yang feel," Weiss said.

I looked away from her eyes. She was disarming me. Trying to pen me in. If I looked at her too hard I'd have to give in.

"Please." Ruby begged, her eyes still closed. "Please."

"You two could literally ask me to jump off a bridge like that and I'd have to."

"So you'll come?" Ruby wondered.

"Got no choice now, do I." I tapped Ruby twice on the leg to tell her to get up off of me and I pulled myself up and out of the bunk. "But if I fall behind and never transfigure the needle that's on you two."

"Pssh. Yeah. Okay." Weiss hit me with the sass.

My feet hit the ground and I gestured for them to lead the way. They did, holding hands while I walked behind them and cored out my apple.

It was a short walk to team RWBY'S room. Literally one door down, was all. It brought back some memories of my team JNPR, when there was a team JNPR, being right down the hall from team RWBY. It was a painful memory. It had its ups and downs to it but really it was just painful as well.

"Yang, Blake?" Ruby opened the door and popped her head in, swinging the door wide open. "We're headed to dinner. You wanna come with us?"

"Sure. Will uh Cloud be there?" Yang asked.

"Right here." I stepped into view and waved at Yang.

"How's it hanging, Cloud?" Yang politely followed up.

"Oh you know. The usual."

"For you that could be anything," Yang returned.

"It's a bit of everything to be honest," I said. Weiss bumped me with her elbow. "Mostly good at the moment though."

"Reminds me a bit of getting dinner with team JNPR, you know? We'll be right there," she said getting up and helping Blake up too. Blake looked less enthused but she was coming.

"Yeah, those were… good times…" I trailed and rubbed the back of my head.

"Cloud…" Weiss hissed.

"I'm literally doing my best." I whispered back.

I let them all march in front of me and I took up the distant rear. "Remember when Nora would demand that Ren make pancakes for her, she wouldn't eat the stuff they made for us on pancake mornings," Yang said. "Oh no. She had to have it Ren style."

I didn't much like to think about Ren and Nora. Maybe even less than I liked to think about Pyrrha and what could have been there. When she had kissed me she had meant it. My fault. All my fault.

Not that I was unhappy with my current situation. I walked behind my two girlfriends and their teammates and listened to them reminisce about times past with another team long dead.

"She always just liked him in that outfit, I thought," Weiss said as we made our way up to the dinning hall.

"I didn't think it was about the pancakes. Just Ren's attention," Ruby murmured. "She liked having his attention."

"And they never got the chance to… well you know. Figure the other person out fully," Blake said. "I'd like to say it was obvious what they felt, but it never came from their lips."

"We'll never know, now." I cut in. I realized my mistake when they all turned to look at me. "I mean Nora was asking me for advice on how to get with him. And he was asking me for the same thing. They just…" I killed them. "Ran out of time," I finished. I tried to shake it off and come up with something less depressing to say.

Yang read me though.

"What about Pyrrha? We all knew that she liked you," Yang said. "You're quite the lucky guy looking at things like that."

"I never knew. Not until it was too late," I told her.

"Is there a story to that too?" Blake asked a touch sardonic.

We lined up and got our dinners. I tried to shake my somber mood off but couldn't quite manage it.

"She kissed me before she went and fought Cinder. Then she died."

"Cloud… your life sucks," Yang said as we sat at the table. It felt like there were three missing spots where I sat off to one side of the other four.

I looked at her in shock. "Um…"

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything but you have to admit that your life does suck," Yang said quickly.

"I'm not sure whether to be offended or…"

"Not offended. You have to admit that your life so far has been a series of unfortunate events," Yang pointed out. "You got born, stuck at Beacon where you sucked, Pyrrha died, then Nora and Ren died."

"And it keeps coming," I agreed at last. "Doesn't seem like there's much I can do to get away from it sometimes. I mean I've had the occasional bright spot, all of Beacon was good, I think, but for the most part…" I trailed and shook my head. "What about you girls. It couldn't have all been easy for you either. Yang, you lost your arm for crying out loud."

"Yeah but I didn't kill my friends."

"Yang!" Weiss hissed.

"No, no. Weiss she's right. I fucked up."

"It wasn't your fault," Ruby said tenderly. She reached over to me but I rejected her touch for a moment. I didn't want the things she felt for me at that second. The purity burned me.

"Disagree. But that's not the point. It still happened to me. Is this really the first time we've all spent time together since Beacon fell? At least of those of us that remain?" I asked. At least of those of us I didn't let die, more like.

"Happy reunion," Blake muttered over her dinner.

"I'll cheers to that." Yang held out her glass. I clanked it with mine.

"So much has happened," Weiss said. "Even since that time Ren told us we had all grown so much. And of course you weren't there for that, Blake. I'm sure he would have told you that you had grown too."

"We've all changed. Some of us even changed our names," Blake murmured.

"Hard to imagine things will stay the same as they are now. I mean, I can't imagine working for Ironwood forever," I said. "Things are just going to keep changing."

"Hey, maybe you'll get some good changes out of this one," Yang cheered optimistically.

"Hey, I doubt it." I chuckled. "All things serious though I got Ruby and Weiss. How much better can I expect things to get for me? This is probably the high point of my life."

"You think something bad is going to happen?" Ruby asked.

"I know it will. That's how my life goes, up for a bit then down. Probably run into my sisters or something else awful and then caput."

"Well, family is just like that," Weiss said. I nodded but everybody else at the table shook their heads.

"Your two families are like that," Blake returned. "You leave my family out of this. My family is fantastic."

"Samesies," Yang threw in. "Yeah it's complicated but it's not hostile, well maybe not."

"I suppose we wouldn't know," Weiss murmured. "My father, well, don't even get me started."

"Same but for my momma." I held my glass to my lips. "She's such a bitch. You ever feel like literally every problem on the planet is your mom's fucking fault?" I took a long drink.

Yang laughed at that. "You're in my club on that one."

And Weiss gave a small giggle behind her hand. Blake smiled at me but Ruby just gave me that old worried look.

She reached out and put her palm on my thigh. A small comfort in a big world.

"Well not everyone has the mommy issues that you do. Some of us have our very own mom issues," Yang said.

I nearly spat out my drink. "What? What is it?" Ruby asked.

"I forgot to tell you all. I ran into Raven fucking Branwen when I was on the lamb with Neo checking out Merlot's laboratory in Anima."

"Well did you get her?" Yang asked her tone low and sarcastic.

"She teleported away before I could kill her. Sorry? Or not sorry. Whichever is best."

"Eh that's fine," Yang waved a hand. "She's bound to be slippery. Not sure if anyone will be able to catch her and put her down. She's a coward. She'd probably just run from you the next time you meet. If you run into her again, that is."

"I was sure to cut her nice and good for you, Yang."

"Oh is that why you did it?"

"Not really. I was sort of just pissed off at what I'd found in the lab. Needed a good target and she was just kinda there, I guess."

"Now that I get," Yang pointed at me with her glass hand. "Trust me on that one."

"Fair cop," I returned. Ruby was rubbing my thigh in a little circle and looking up at my face.

It felt good. Talking felt good. I was glad they dragged me out into this. I sighed and reclined. If only life could stay like this forever…

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	76. These Hands II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I walked up to Seventh Heaven. I still didn't have a new bike so I'd had to trek all the way down here from Atlas Academy. I'd even dodged my girlfriends a little which made me feel a touch uncomfortable inside. But it just might prove necessary.

I'd received a message from Bisque stating that we needed to talk in person. The lines might not be secure which as a terrorist organization I said fair enough.

Aurum laid low under the law. That's how he got by and made his money whereas Avalanche played things fast and loose. I wouldn't be shocked if they were being watched when Aurum wasn't per se.

The bells jingled as I walked in.

"Cloud!" Bisque exclaimed. "There you are. Haven't seen you in a few weeks."

"Yeah well I started playing for the other side of the law," I informed him.

"You mean…"

"I won't turn you in or anything but I can't exactly help you out anymore. You got information for me? Is that why you called me down here?"

"We actually wanted your help…"

"More of my help, you mean."

"Yeah well we're only a budding organization."

Someone came down from upstairs in the place. It was Jasper. "Cloud? It's so good to see you!" She walked over and hugged me, her tail swishing all the while.

"Yeah well I'm pretty sure I won't be here for long."

"Oh don't be like that. Let me get you a drink."

"Fuck it. Why not. Get me a screwdriver. Those house specials of yours are too sweet for me and I don't have Neo around."

"Oh? Where is she?" Jasper asked.

"Not sure at the moment. Hopefully laying low and waiting for the next storm to come in. Haven't seen her for two weeks or so. Been busy. Trying to make things right on the proper side of the law."

"Yeah, we've been doing a bit of that ourselves. We've been trying to calm down the protests while still having the political force to back Robyn Hill," Jasper said as she made my drink.

"It's been slow going though. We had no idea when we bombed the mine it would set all this off. If word ever spread around that we were responsible it would collapse in on us," Bisque informed me.

Jasper slid down my screwdriver and I took a long drink of the hard mixer. I took a seat at the bar. And Bisque leaned his elbows on the counter to talk to me.

"Ah…" I breathed off the alcohol after a moment. "How have the protests been going?"

"Good. The people seem ready to vote for Robyn. She made all kinds of campaign promises to make that happen. New standards for miners. An increase in minimum wages. That sort of thing," Jasper chirped in her usual upbeat tone.

"The people have Avalanche to thank for it and some of them know it. They're listening to us," Bisque followed. "Wenge is out leading a strike right now."

"You can hardly tell that they're still going on from up in Atlas," I murmured around my drink.

"They'll see once Robyn is elected," Bisque said. "And that's just a matter of time. No one down here wants Schnee to have any more power than he already has."

"And up in Atlas?" I asked.

"It's more divided. She still has a twenty point lead over him up there against a forty point lead down here. But it's more scary," Jasper murmured. "Atlas has always done its own thing and usually not to the betterment of Mantle."

"Easy enough to do when the city is so divided," I mumbled.

"Two cities," Bisque corrected.

"Not really," I fired back. And I genuinely believed that. It wasn't so different from the tiered cities of Mistral. Separate but together all the same.

Someone came in behind me and I turned to see Barrett. The big bear of a man sauntered in with a new mechanical arm on his right side. It gleamed gunmetal grey and seemed to have a gun built into it. I'd seen more than my fair share of arms like that.

"Good, the merc is here," he said in his gruff tone.

"Been trying to get out of that business, actually. Wasn't sustainable for me," I told him. I crossed my arms.

"Dyne has gone off the deep end. He refused a new mechanical arm in favor of just a machine gun. When his wife, Eleanor, died from dust lung he lost it. He's planning all sorts of mayhem and destruction. He already killed fifteen people. Maybe more."

"I see…" I really didn't. I had no idea what he wanted from me in all of this.

"I'm afraid for his little girl, Marigold. She was hurt recently in the protests. I've been looking after her for the last couple of days. He hasn't even been by. I need your help to stop him, bring him back to his senses."

"What makes you think I'm interested or that you have anything I want?" I asked. My arms still folded.

"I have information. I know you'll wan' it. It's about how your bomb went off prematurely on the _White Whale_."

I stared at him hard. He was right. I did want it. "Give me a teaser, so I know you are serious," I demanded of him.

"Sabotage. It was supposed to go off even earlier if the saboteurs had their way," The large man informed me.

I breathed in a deep shuddering sigh. He was right. I did want that information. Whoever they are they got Neo hurt. Amongst everything else, she was my friend. "I can't get caught doing anything that will violate my parole," I informed him.

"Dyne and his gang are criminals right about now. If you're working for the law, it's your job t' bring them in. Alls I'm asking for is a chance to talk t' Dyne before you do."

"And you'll hand over the identity of my saboteurs if I do?" I asked. My bomb going off had been suspicious as all hell to me. I was normally more than proficient with those sorts of bombs despite how flippant I'd been with them it still stuck out in my mind.

"Got it in one." He grinned at me. Big and fierce under his dark shades. His mechanical arm flexing slightly. I took it in a firm shake.

"Well," I said. "What are we waiting for, then?"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was an old warehouse building we pulled up on in Avalanche's truck. I got out first followed by Barrett. "Do these guys have aura?" I asked. "I don't want to kill anybody."

"Some."

"That's just great," I said exasperatedly. I sighed and pulled my shield and my sword. I could probably go easy enough that nobody really got hurt. But still, why couldn't all my opponents have the decency to not only have aura but to broadcast how much aura they had.

Just because I was used to killing people didn't mean that I liked it. And I had seriously killed a lot of people in my time. A lot. If there were people as young as I was who had a higher body count I hadn't heard of them. That was going by either definition of age you wanted to use on me. It didn't matter how you wanted to cut how old I was, I was the ninety ninth percentile on murder and mayhem.

We waltzed in the front door of the place. Leaving Bisque out in the truck.

"Barrett…" Dyne turned to look at us from a lowered section of the room where he was talking to a handful of people. There was all kinds of machinery to the room. Cranes and jacks and mining equipment.

"Dyne. I'm here to bring you to Marigold. Your daughter needs you," Barrett said.

"You brought the merc. The dust… brother...it's telling me something…" Dyne trailed off.

Okay. This was coming from me, but this guy had officially lost it. I might not be the most stable iceberg in the sea but crazy recognized crazy and this guy had some helpings of it.

"Is it telling you that you're nuts?" I asked. Barrett shoved me in the ribs with his metallic elbow.

"...the dust. My path of destruction has brought me here…" Dyne trailed off once more. I lingered behind Barrett ready to take down all the others in the room. My longsword and great 't' shaped shield at the ready.

"Why are you doing this Dyne? Why'd you kill those people? The protests don't need to be violent." Barrett demanded of him.

"The dust told me to, brother."

"And did the dust tell you why?" Barrett wondered, a touch sardonic.

"Why?" Dyne repeated, a bit mockingly. "Why does there got to be a reason that people do things? Is there a why for Eleanor's death? How about your wife Barrett? There a why for her dying?"

"She...she's already gone. Dust lung. Same as your wife. That's the why." Barrett murmured in his baritone.

"And still you hold on, brother. You could let go. Be like me."

"And start the wanton, chaotic destruction of people and property?"

"Destruction of everything, brother. That's the goal. That's what we're starting," Dyne shot back.

"You used to be just focused on the Schnees. But then you just started hurting everyone and everything."

"Of course brother." Dyne let out a low chuckle. "Had to be done. The dust told me to do it all."

"What's the dust telling you now? Dyne?" Barrett asked. His voice pleading despite the baritone of it.

"It's telling me that I should see Marigold again." Dyne rubbed at his forehead with his real hand like he had a headache.

"That's… that's great news. Let's go see her right now. She's happy and healthy and safe. I've been looking after her. Just like I promised I would."

"She misses her mother, don't she? I'm sure she does…" Dyne trailed off into a low, mad chuckle.

"Dyne… what are you saying?" Barrett wondered.

"I'm saying I should be there to send her to her mother."

"Yikes," I muttered. "That is a yikes from me, dog."

"You'd kill your own daughter? You're not the Dyne I used to know!" Barrett shouted. He ignored me. He pointed his wrist down range at Dyne and his accomplices.

"Oh if you point your weapon at me you best come correct," Dyne all but whispered. "You best come with fire and lightnin'!" Then he roared.

"I don't want to fight you Dyne!"

"I suspect you've got no choice, brother!" He pointed his own wrist mounted gun at the two of us. His friends took up their own arms as well. "Or my path of destruction won't end here! I'll go on to consume every man, woman, and child. Just like the dust consumed me! You understand dontcha? Just like the dust consumed me!" He repeated. His voice had a lilt to it that was hard to place. Like he finally understood everything. Instead he was just rambling like a mad man.

I got that. I'd been there and done that. The whole path of destruction thing, too. First one target then the next then the next. Each seeming as good as any other. Was this what it was like to see it from the outside? It seemed like a lost cause but then I'd come back.

_Or had I?_

Had I really come back? The only things that kept me from slipping had been the thought of my friends. I was with them now. Well not now now but I was with them in general. I was back. They were worrying about me. I was worrying about them. We were doing what we could for each other just like before. I even had two girlfriends. Two! That was almost twice as many as one and they loved me. I'd felt their love and the beat of their warm hearts wrapped around me. I'd felt it tight around me. If I lost that like Dyne had would I keep going?

I shuddered at the thought. If Ruby or Weiss died that would probably be it for me. That's it. I'm done. I'm out. Maybe I'd kill myself. Maybe I'd just go on a tear. Tyrian had been a mass murderer. A serial killer. For a moment or two I got the appeal of that. Just killing just to kill. Just to feel something. Anything at all. I got that.

Then there was my Mother. Always pressing on the surface of my mind with her tentacles. Would I give in to that? Maybe. Hard maybe.

Maybe I'd lose them again. Maybe I'd have to run away once more. That wasn't the same as them dying on me. But it was still a possibility. Could I stand to do that again? Another hard maybe. At least I'd have Neo. Wretched thing that she was. That we both were. Couldn't exactly throw that stone.

I pointed my sword down the range and let my shield fall by my side. I was ready to move and act. I could see it all now. Barrett and Dyne opening fire on the other. The rest diving to the side while I moved in. Anybody without aura would be getting ripped to shreds.

"It don't have to be like this! We can still walk away Dyne!"

"Yes it does brother. You know it does! I'm gonna fight and you gotta try and stop me!"

They started shooting. People dived to the side to avoid the spray of bullets. Rounds pinged off my thick aura and I moved. I blurred into a hovering roll and got beside Dyne and his men. I grabbed one and slammed him into my knee and sliced at another I was pretty sure had aura. I cut deep into it then I reached out with my shield hand and tossed him and he flew until he slammed into one of the cranes.

Barrett fired a grenade down into the pit and it exploded sending Dyne rolling with a flare of light blue aura. I sliced at another and bit through his arm. Blood sprayed through the air and he screamed until I punched him in the face with my shield. He went down with a massive bruise forming on his head.

I got on top of Dyne and he opened fire right into my torso with his weapon. The gun arm blared at me and punched holes in my aura that made me stagger about until Barrett jumped into the pit and grabbed Dyne's gun arm with his free one and picked him up by it.

He then opened up into Dyne's chest.

I think he meant to stop shooting when Dyne ran out of aura but that grenade had already taken the lion's share of it.

"Don't!" I shouted a moment too late.

A hole blew straight through Dyne's torso and Barrett dropped him in surprise. It left a dying man crawling around on the ground and bleeding out.

"The dust, man. The dust..." Dyne grained from the pit.

"Dyne!"

"Take this pendant. Give it to Marigold. It belonged to her mother. I can't ever hold her again with these stained hands," Dyne rolled over. "These stained hands." He ripped a pendant from his neck and tossed it up out of the lowered section of floor up at Barrett.

Barrett caught it and could do nothing but watch as Dyne died.

"Mine ain't any cleaner, Dyne," Barrett whispered. "Mine ain't any cleaner."

"Take care of her, like she was your own. Please. Look after my Marigold."

"I will." Barrett vowed. And Dyne died in the pit in the floor of the warehouse.

I stabbed my sword into the ground and listened to the sounds of the oncoming sirens.

"Those going to be a problem for you?" I indicated my head in the direction the sirens were coming from. I sheathed my sword and put the whole rig back on my shoulder.

"Nah man. I suppose you'll be wanting your information," he spoke downtrodden and muted compared to his normally fierce voice.

"Yeah. That'd be great."

"It was the Happy Huntresses. They have this invisibility field. They wanted to shut down your op," he told me. He rubbed his face in his hands. Reaching underneath the glasses he wore to rub at his eyes.

"Thanks." I told him. I wiped a few beads of sweat from my brow. "Best of luck with the little girl. That can be a lot to deal with."

"Thank you. For everything," he managed.

"What will you do now?" I asked.

He stretched. "I might join Avalanche. They could use someone like me."

"Might be a good fit. You've got a little girl to look after now, though. Will the terrorism agree with you?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But I can't let her grow up in a world I know I could have done more for. For my wife. And for Dyne. I know I have to do more. You got people you have to do more for?"

"Yeah. These two ladies and their teammates. I'd kill and die for them."

"You want some advice?" He asked.

"Sure," I said. I could use some genuine advice in the spot I was in. It sounded like he'd lived through it. I could take it.

"Any old fool can kill and die for something. It takes a man to live and let live for something."

I just nodded. Maybe fucking so. It was easy to kill things. So fucking easy. It was so much harder to keep something alive.

I listened and waited for the sirens.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	77. Am I Human I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Where were you?" Ruby asked me.

"In town. Down in Mantle. There's this bar I went to a lot when I was a criminal. It's run by this union group," I answered. I shifted slightly in the corner of Team RWBY's room. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.

"We don't like it when you just disappear. Anything could have happened," Ruby went on.

"And I heard you were involved with some plot in tandem with the strikes. That was where our people picked you up. In the middle of a crime scene. You're not giving us the full story," Weiss followed her up.

"I worked with the leader of this terrorist group, Dyne, while I was a criminal. His wife died and he went mad from grief. He had this little girl, Marigold. He was talking about killing her. So I showed up and did my job as a huntsman."

"You were working with those terrorists though. Weren't you. When you were a criminal," Yang perceived.

"I was working with a different group of terrorists. But effectively yes. It was my responsibility to clean things up. And they had information I needed. Or could have had information I needed. About my sisters or Cinder. I had to follow up."

"Why didn't you tell us? We would have gone with you!" Ruby exclaimed.

"I know you would've. This wasn't about that. It was about cleaning up my own mess. Ironwood's orders to take the day off be damned."

"He is technically your superior officer," Blake said.

"Maybe. But he needed this kind of thing cleaned up, too."

"But people died," Ruby mumbled.

"People always die," I shot back. "What matters now is that it's over and done with."

"This kind of terrorism is never over and done with," Blake fired at me.

I had to concede the point to her. She would know better than me.

"What should I do next time? Get you four involved in something I can take care of?"

"We're not little girls," Weiss said with some venom. "We deserve to be in the loop."

"I never said you were. I handled it. And when I find my sisters or Cinder I'll let you know just like I let you know back at the hotel that I found out she was in town. But you don't need to be involved in every little errand I run."

"People died and that's an errand to you?" Blake asked.

"Yeah. That's about right. I didn't kill them. I even went out of my way to try and spare them, too. People are just fragile."

"I don't like this. No more secret errands," Weiss told me.

"Fine," I agreed. "I promise to let you know first next time."

"I want you to not do it," Weiss returned. Some heat in her voice. If I wasn't careful this would turn into our first lover's spat. It might be already too late for that.

"I needed to do it. It had to be done. I needed some information that the guy I was with had."

"And what information was that?" Weiss demanded.

"When I sunk your father's ship one of my charges went off prematurely. I needed to know why and who my saboteur was."

"You sunk that ship?" Weiss asked. "Any other terrorist acts you're not telling us?"

"I also caused that mine collapse."

"You're responsible for all the strikes down in Mantle!" Weiss exclaimed. "I can't believe this. And let me guess, you forgot to tell us."

"It hasn't come up! And yeah. I probably am responsible. I was buying future information from Avalanche and Aurum. My criminal contacts in this city. I was building my network. I did far worse than sink a ship and cause a dust mine collapse. I killed people and burned down a building, too. But you already knew that."

"Why'd you burn down that building, Cloud?" Ruby asked.

"It was full of drugs. Aurum's competitors. It was a favor."

"Cloud!" Weiss shouted.

"I'm not a perfect person! I'm not even a good one! You already knew that!"

"What else have you been up to in this city?!" Weiss demanded.

"I think that's about it."

"You think so?"

"Damn, Weiss, I can't remember everything at once and my mind plays tricks on me. I don't remember. Some prisoner break out, too, for that guy, Aurum. But you knew about that too. I didn't even kill anyone with that."

"And you think that makes it better?!" Weiss asked.

"It doesn't make it any worse!"

Her nostrils flared up at me. "I'm tired of you not telling me things. Of you trying to hide things. Like when you wanted to not tell Ruby about your seizures. You don't get to decide what's best for us."

"I didn't even know today would be a problem. They just said they had something they couldn't discuss over the phone. I'm literally telling you all everything. As it comes up. You want my life story? Well, me too."

She glared at me for a moment more. "Fine. But no more tip toeing around the line. You come clean with us. Before. Not after." The 'or else' was implied. I got the memo.

"Did you find out who sabotaged you?" Blake asked.

"The Happy Huntresses. You heard of them? Robyn Hill wanted to shut me down. Adam Taurus was there. When my bomb went off early he thought I was cutting the mission off at the knees and he attacked me. That was when he nearly killed me. Any more questions?"

"What information were you looking for?" Weiss asked.

"Just more dirt on Cinder, Merlot, and my sisters. I've been trying to learn all I can but so far 'nothing much' has pretty much been the word."

"But you know that Cinder is in town. From who?" Weiss questioned me further.

"Aurum. He's a drug lord. He runs The Den where you ambushed me that night. Anybody else?"

They were silent.

"What are we going to do for the rest of the night?" Ruby asked.

"Grill me," I deadpanned.

"You brought this on yourself," Weiss shot back. "If you would have at least told us where you were going that would have been something."

"You would have wanted to come."

"Which ought to tell you something."

"Guys…" Ruby bemoaned. We both shut up.

I sighed after a moment of silence. "Look Weiss. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it. I'll do more next time."

She rubbed her thighs where she sat with her palms and wouldn't meet my eye. "You had better." I figured that was as close to an 'it's okay' as I was going to get. I took it as such. We weren't ruined over this. It was just a fight. We'd be back to where we were later.

"So seriously what are we going to do for the rest of the night?" Ruby asked again.

"I was going to go get my bike out of impound."

"You bought a bike?" Yang asked.

"Just some wheels to get Neo and I around. Any of you are welcome to come with. It'll probably be boring as hell."

"I'll go with. Can I drive it?" Ruby wondered.

"I don't see why not. I also don't see why." I gave her a teasing grin. She 'pffted' her hair out of her face up at me but she gave me a small smile.

Weiss sighed. "Does it have room for three?"

"Probably if we don't mind getting touchy-feely with one another," I answered.

"We're going dancing again. You mentioned The Den. Is it any good?"

"I never clubbed there. Well not really. About the only thing special about it is all the hard drugs."

"You didn't…" Weiss trailed, slightly threateningly.

"I tried some. I figured it couldn't make things worse." Open honesty being the policy…

"So that's how you know what hyper is like," Weiss sighed. She leaned a hand on her forehead like she had a headache.

"Is it any good? I always wondered, too. Ow. Don't hit, Blake," Yang muttered.

"I could honestly take it or leave it."

"Leave it," Weiss growled like she was talking to a dog. Which, I mean, fair enough.

"You could give it a try. Tell them Cloud sent you. Get you a bit of a discount," I went on like I hadn't heard her. "It's a bit intense. Bit of a rush. But you can get the same thing with, like, good sex."

"Interesting…" Yang said. "Blake. I said no hitting. You're abusive."

"You'll find out just how abusive I can be," Blake shot back. "No drug use."

"Cloud is there any good weed in this town?" Yang wondered. "I tried some back home. I could use it to open this girl up. Loosen up, Blake."

"Some. Same place. Same people. Got your hook up. I could really use a hit right now, too."

"Tough shit for you, Jau-Cloud. Learn to live without," Weiss grumbled, slipping up on my new name.

"I'm trying but it's not easy."

"Did it really help that much?" Ruby asked.

"Ruby!" Weiss hissed.

"What? If it helped him then… then I want it for him."

"It's a hard maybe, Rubes. Let's keep trying what the doctors have me on for now. But I'm not sure I can take a few more months of this."

"Is it that bad?" Ruby wondered.

"It's not great," I returned with a sigh.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I got my bike out of impound and was riding it down an empty highway. Our seating order went me, Weiss, then Ruby in the back. They clung to each other then to me super close. It was actually kinda nice. Especially Weiss clinging to my torso after our fight.

It let me at least pretend I was in part forgiven. Even more so when I'd take a turn and feel her arms tighten around my chest. Her fingers trailing across my abdomen and her palms drifting across me.

I checked my rear view mirror. Two other bikes were coming up on me. I slowed down to let them pass, I wasn't in any rush. Then they caught up to me and started to match my speed.

I truly wasn't that suspicious until one of them pulled a sword with two blades. The other whipped out a gauntlet with sharp points on the end. The rider, a girl, hovered close to me on her bike. A helmet obscuring her features. Blonde hair breezing through the air behind her.

"Cloud!" Ruby called, her voice barely making it above the wind. "It's them! From Argus!"

I flinched. I drew my sword around Weiss's body and drove with one hand.

I turned my bike sideways and abruptly slowed down in an attempt to lose them. Another girl on a bike rode up on me right then from behind, boxing me in. She yanked up on her bike and front-flipped right over us, bike and all. She pulled her pistol from her waist and pointed it right at my head as she did. Then she fired and the punch from her gun rocked my head back.

I'd gotten a good look at her through her helmet as she did her trick though.

"Saphron?!" I asked. I shouted over the breeze. "You're real?"

The one with the gauntlet pulled up on me. I recognized her immediately. "Lavender? You too?"

"Poor big brother. Can't tell reality from fiction." Lavender let out a laugh. Her narrower jaw made her stand out from my memory of my sisters. My head suddenly pounded and I touched it with my sword hand. My sisters…

"Come with us, big brother," another voice said. I recognized it right away. Violet pulled up on my other side with her double blade. Her darker eyes and shapely nose pointed her out. Our swords clashed for a moment. I could feel Ruby and Weiss readying their weapons on the bike behind me as I drove.

Violet tried to catch my weapon with a twist of hers and disarm me. I held fast to my enormous weapon regardless. I slashed at her and she blocked while I drove.

"Come see Mother with us. She'd be happy to see you," Violet giggled. Like it was some private joke. I didn't laugh. I didn't get it.

Lavender punched at me with her gauntlet and I drove the bike to the side on the empty highway and I sliced at her too.

Saphron was pulling up in front of me. She turned around in the seat on her bike and shot me with her pistol again. It was a decent calibre round because it stung.

My head pounded. It hurt like it had when I'd last talked to, "...Mother?" I wondered aloud.

"Come with us, Jaune," Lavender beckoned. "We'll take you to see her." Her voice pierced over the wind as we drove down the empty highway.

"Cloud!" Ruby called. "Stay focused!"

"Cloud?!" Violet laughed. My sword met hers again. The long blade served to keep her double one away. "Is that what they think your name is?"

"I'm…" I flinched like I'd touched a hot stove but with my brain. "I'm Cloud now."

Saphron shot at me twice again. One hit me in the chest, the other pinged off of my bike.

"Is that what you're calling yourself?" Saphron asked. A note of laughter on her voice. "You'll always be our Jaune."

Ruby stood up on the back of my bike and took a shot at Saphron. It struck asphalt and tore it up. I drove over where she had just shot and the bike went _badump_.

She fired another shot and hit Saphron in the back. Saphron twisted on her bike so she was driving backwards and took three more shots at us. I heard Ruby cry out in pain. She'd just made herself a bigger target when she stood up.

Lavender came up on me again. She seemed to hesitate. I knew that stance. It was like she was charging something. She was storing a little time away. She punched down at my bike and I swerved to avoid her gauntlet. She swerved down and struck the asphalt and tore a huge chunk of it out in a flash of purple light. Then she threw it at us.

Weiss caught it with her psuedo-telekinesis. A dull black glyph came to life. Then she tossed it over us and at Violet who had to swerve to avoid it.

"Big brother!" Saphron sung out. "Don't you want a family reunion? Everyone can be there. Especially if it's for you."

"Come be with us! Ditch these girls. You don't need them." Lavender called. I clashed with her gauntlet again. Myrtenaster poked out from beside me and met the double blade of Violet.

Saphron shot back at me twice again. She hit me both times with preternatural accuracy.

"Come be with us." Violet purred. Ruby opened fire from her stance on the back of the bike and hit Saphron again. Saphron spun back around to drive straight once more.

My head hurt so bad. It was like talking to Mother again. It pounded with memories. With _memory_.

"Cloud? Are you alright?" Weiss asked.

"I'm fine," I bit out.

My head whipped back again as Saphron shot me in the skull one more time. Then my blade met Violet's beside me. I shoved her back.

Lavender was driving focused and unmoving. Like she was storing more time away for another devastating attack. Ruby took three shots at her to disrupt her concentration. The first hit her. And the next two hit her bike and caused her to swerve slightly.

Ruby shifted her weapon into its full mode out of just the gun state and took a swipe at Violet while I had her blade engaged.

Saphron shot me three more times. They came at me high impact and hit like .50 caliber bullets. I was pretty sure they were. She tossed an empty clip behind her and reloaded. She then whipped around and threw a knife at me. It buried in my aura up to the hilt and the tip nicked my face, leaving a cut behind before it bounced down into the street.

I flinched to the side. I swerved slightly to the right but that just led me closer to Lavender. I tried to block her purple flaring punch with the wide side of Crocea Mors but the force of it was enough to lift up my whole bike, three passengers and all. It nearly slammed us into Violet. Who in turn took a long slash at the bike that would have crippled us if Weiss hadn't caught us with a glyph and blocked her cut with Myrtenaster.

Saphron shot me in the head again and there was a whoosh of air as I got Limit.

I had had enough. I stabbed Crocea Mors into the asphalt and picked us up off the ground. I swung the bike around without losing momentum and reversed us completely so that we were driving the wrong way. Then I crossed over to the other side of the interstate over one of those entry ways for police. I left my sisters behind, driving straight where I'd completely turned around.

"Cloud?" I put my sword away and raised a hand to my head.

"...Mother?" I murmured.

"Cloud, snap out of it!" Weiss ordered.

I shook my head. I was trying but my head hurt. And not just from being shot there a couple times.

Behind my eyes pulsed and I shuddered. Weiss wrapped her arms around me tightly.

"It's okay, Cloud. We're here."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I stumbled off my bike at the garage in Atlas Academy. I fell to my knees. The grimy pavement in the garage mattered little. I felt grimy in my head in my very soul.

_Come to me…my son… my precious son..._

"Cloud, you recognized them, didn't you." It was Ruby's voice.

"Saphron, Violet, and Lavender," I muttered. "They're real. My sisters are real." I sort of knew that they had been, I could feel it. Like I could feel Mother. But seeing it was a whole next level.

"Cloud? Are you alright?"

"My head hurts. And I hear Mother's voice," I bemoaned. I rubbed my face with the whole of a hand. I got a phantom pain across my entire tongue from when I'd bitten through it.

_Reunion… a family reunion… Just for you. _

"Mother?" I called out.

"He's delirious," it was Weiss's voice. I felt her arms wrap under mine. "Gods he's heavy. Help me, Ruby."

_Everyone will be there…_

"Everyone will be there. At the reunion," I murmured. "All my sisters. And Mother."

"What are your other sisters' names?" Ruby asked.

_Iris, Kolumbine, Juniper, Lily..._

"Iris, Kolumbine, Juniper, and Lily," I repeated Mother's voice outloud for Ruby.

"Someone has a flower fetish," Weiss grumbled.

"Step-father must have thought he was being funny. They're… they're all like different models. Different makes. Like cars."

"What's his name?" Ruby wondered. Trying to keep me focused.

"I don't… I don't know." I picked myself up and out of their arms. I took two steps and almost fell again. I pitched and swayed on my feet. I rubbed my face. My head ached.

"How many times were you shot?" Weiss asked. "You've got a nasty cut."

"A couple. She really kept bouncing them off my skull." She had rung my bell with those bullets. Then with that knife.

"Are you going to be alright?" Ruby asked.

"If I…" _go to the reunion…_ "...no…" I murmured. I cut that thought off.

"No?" Ruby asked, concerned.

"Yes?" I realized I was having a conversation with myself. "As alright as I ever am."

"That doesn't sound promising," Weiss murmured.

"They knew your old name," Ruby followed her up, speaking softly.

"Mother must have told them."

"Salem," Weiss softly corrected.

"No… yes…" I breathed. "Salem. My sisters are real. I… I don't know if I can face them. I don't think I'm strong enough. There's seven of them. And I'm just the bad batch."

"Don't think like that," Ruby whispered. "You're not alone, either."

"Let's get him inside. Put him to bed."

"No. Please. Anything but that. She gets me when I sleep," I pleaded. "I'm not strong enough. Not for this. I don't know if I can resist the urge to go to the reunion."

"What's the reunion, Cloud?" Ruby asked.

"My summoning. She calls out to me from so far away." I realized I made no sense to anyone but myself. "Don't you see? She calls to me." Distantly I realized I sounded a lot like Dyne.

"He's going mad." Weiss murmured.

"What do we do?" Ruby whispered back sounding desperate.

"What _can_ we do?" Weiss wondered back.

"How can I save my sisters when I can't even save myself?" I laughed. "Salem has them. She has them. She'll get me too."

"Cloud, listen to us. Can you hear us?" It was Ruby's voice. I heard it so I nodded. "That is not going to happen to you," she went on. "We'll keep you from losing yourself."

"Cloud if you ever feel like you're going to lose yourself we'll be there for you. And we'll help you save your sisters, too. You need to sleep though. We'll be right there for you when you wake up," Weiss reassured.

"How can you know that?"

"Which part?" Weiss asked.

"Any of it," I shot back.

Ruby came up to me and took both my hands in hers. "Because I believe it. We're going to save you."

I choked back a sob. But I nodded. "Don't let me go to the reunion," I begged.

"We won't," Weiss promised.

"Whatever I say and do… And don't let me kill myself."

"Well we especially won't do that," Weiss went on, she smiled slightly. She reached up and touched my face. I almost couldn't look down into her ice blue eyes.

"My head just hurts," I complained as they started to walk me to my room. "It hurts like I'd talked to _her_ again."

"Does it always cause you pain?"

"It did last time. And she made me bite my tongue off. Almost completely."

"You didn't tell us that," Ruby murmured.

"I thought I was going to die from the pain," I confessed. "My head is full of these… these memories. I don't know if they're real. What does it mean for a memory to be real anyways? How can you tell? I have so many memories of living and playing with my sisters. They can't be real though."

I remembered when my sisters braided my hair in Shion. I remembered walking in the rain alone with Kolumbine when we were both just little kids. Just flashes of spending time with the short haired Iris before school one morning. I even knew that I'd fought this boy who pulled on Lily's pigtails. It came to fists over it. Little Lily… my little Lily. I could recall Saphron and I eating my Mother's cookies in the kitchen once. My little sister, a little shortstack. Absolutely adorable with big blue eyes and shoulder length golden hair.

I was going to be sick to my stomach.

And my Mother, she'd been a beautiful blonde woman in a flowing white dress with pale wispy blue eyes like crystal.

But I couldn't recall my father's face or anything about him. That's how I knew it was fake. It was glaring and obvious but only once I knew where to look.

And my Mother… she was always wearing that same dress. White and drifting in every little breeze with golden trimmings to match her pale straw colored locks. That same dress… Burned into my mind. Roaring across my skull. It had been planted there by her. By my Mother. It was all fake. It had to be. I didn't have a childhood.

She was always wearing that same white and golden dress. Always.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	78. Am I Human II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I woke up to my head feeling split open. Not my best start to a day but considering where I'd left off yesterday it was about as good as I could expect to be doing. I couldn't recall my dreams either which I took as a promising sign. Maybe Mother had laid off for once.

_Yeah right. And maybe pigs will fly. _

She'd probably attacked me as ferociously as she ever could if she knew I'd met my sisters yesterday. I remembered so much.

Digging up worms with Iris before a fishing trip.

_Fake_.

A family photo with me surrounded by my energetic sisters. Lily smiling and upside down on the couch for the photo. My eyes rolled for the camera.

_Fake. _

Playing huntsman in the woods near my home with Saphron. I used a small stick as a small imaginary sword to fight off pretend Grimm.

_Fake. _

Kolumbine and Juniper teasing me over my first crush. A wispy girl I could hardly remember from back home.

_Fake. _

Home. Where even was home for me? I remembered it as a lone house in a small woods but where had it been? What was the name of the town it had been a part of? I couldn't remember. Had it been anywhere at all? Or was it all fake pressure from my Mother to help me along the way to losing my mind. A gatekeeper to my madness.

I stood from my bed and took my morning medications. I swallowed them down my dry throat without any water. I tried to shake off what I knew were incomplete memories but I couldn't. I remembered so much and so little at the same time. The same few frames replaying over and over in my head, there was nothing I could do to escape my wrathful memories of peaceful times.

I felt like a bug on a leaf. So unsteady. So uncertain. Ready to be swatted down at a moment's notice. I felt like hardly anything at all.

I wanted to kill something. That would make me feel better. Even if it was just Grimm. Slaying monsters would get me warmed up and ready to go. It would put me in the right mindset. Instead I settled down at my desk and pulled out my chair. I pulled out my needle for a moment and I focused on it.

_Change. _

I demanded of it.

_Transform. _

I told it.

It did neither. The needle remained a needle. And I performed no magic. I wasn't sure who Ozpin thought he was fooling. My sister had done more magic and they would have had my Mother to teach them their entire lives. However long that was. They couldn't be older than me chronologically or biologically. They must be younger than me. They must have been grown until they were about as old as they are now give or take three years. How long I'd been alive and out of my tank for.

There came a knock at my door. A polite double _tap-rap. _It sounded like Weiss from my experience without even opening it. I could be wrong but it sounded like her.

I wasn't sure I wanted to see her. Or anyone. My head still ached and remembered losing my mind a little the night before. I was embarrassed by it. I was embarrassed by my own weakness. And Ruby and Weiss had seen it all unfold.

I got up anyways and left the needle behind. The frustrating fucking thing that it was. Ozpin had transformed it so easily and here I was still struggling two weeks later. I'd made no progress. None.

I opened the door to find Weiss as I suspected I would. Her blue eyes like shimmering ice and her hair not yet done up in her plait. It left it mid-back length long locks of platinum. She was beautiful.

I looked away. I was embarrassed about losing my marbles last night over my sisters.

"How are you feeling, Cloud?" She asked in a low voice. She raised an eyebrow at where I blocked the door. "Are you going to let me in?"

I was because of course I was. I stood to the side of the door frame and held the door open. She stepped inside, slippers making soft noises against the cold floor.

"I'm alright," I told her.

"You always answer that way. Even when you're doing poorly. You can tell us how you're really feeling. We won't hold it against you if you're not your usual self," she murmured. She gave me a soft reassuring smile.

I looked away and sighed. "I'm feeling fragile today. I want to kill something though. I want to be violent. I feel like that's all I'm good for. Violence. I can barely stave off the memories in my head that I know are fake. I know that they're fake."

"Tell me about them." She brushed her hair back behind her head as she spoke.

"My Mother was always wearing the same white dress in every memory I have of her. And… and I don't remember my father's face. There's other inconsistencies too. Little impossibilities. I remember being teased by my sisters about my first crush when I was a small boy. Something I know is impossible. It couldn't have happened but it feels real to me. I wonder if they remember these things too but from their own perspective. I wonder how twisted Salem has made them."

"You care about them. Your sisters."

"I… I do. My feelings for them are not real, though. I've never met them. Not like I've met and gotten to know the rest of you. You and Ruby. And Blake and Yang. Even my team when they were around. When they _were_ around."

"Your feelings are valid, Cloud."

I scoffed. A low sound. She reached out and touched my face. She had to stand up on her tiptoes to truly manage it. She forced me to look at her. I could hardly stand it. She was gorgeous even with the long scar running over one eye.

"What?" She asked. "They are. Just because Salem has you all twisted and strung out doesn't make what you feel any less true. I remember my own father's emotional manipulation. My feelings were valid then even if they were caused by him."

"Your father… will you tell me about his manipulations?" I asked. I bent low and ran my lips over hers. I threaded and held her bottom lip between my own and she let out a little sigh through her nose. I watched her eyes flutter shut and I reached my long arms around her waist and just held her close to me. She put both her small hands on my chest and let out a hum into the kiss.

"I will if you let me," she whispered when I finally broke off the kiss. "Are you going to let me?"

"Tempted to not…" I groaned.

"He brought up my mother a lot. He liked to imply that I was responsible for her drinking habits. I wasn't. She had only herself to blame for them."

"Your mother was a drinker, then?" I asked.

"Yes, she was. Ever since I was very young. My father was sober and in control throughout most of my life. It wasn't a good thing. I wonder sometimes if my mother would have been a better parent even as a drunk. Or perhaps no one at all. At least I had my butler, Klein. He really raised me."

"Well, not to shave off your suffering, but I think you turned out pretty good. Good enough to keep," I informed her.

"You would say that," she said softly. But she had a small smile quirking her lips to let me know I scored at least a few points with her.

"How did the election go last night? I went to bed and didn't pay it any attention."

"I forgot, myself. But when I woke up this morning Robyn won her seat. She's a sitting member of the council now, with Ironwood. But there's some investigation going on into the election. Electronic voter tampering."

"Sounds like bad news for Mantle. But then what isn't in this place?"

"You're so pessimistic, my gods," she laughed at me a little. "Good thing Ruby is around to balance me out or I might join you down there. She keeps me balanced."

"It's my experience. All my recent, which is to say real memories usually involve somebody I care about dying. Or worse."

"We're here for you. So don't be all room and gloom. You have two beautiful girlfriends."

"Little arrogant of you, don't you think."

"Please," she retorted. Swishing her hair back behind her. "I am beautiful."

"Don't forget narcissistic."

"You don't go down that road. This is the part where you agree with me. Didn't you say boyfriends agree with their smart girlfriends?"

"Hey, of course I think you're beautiful. First real crush, remember? Couldn't believe I thought I had a chance with you. Then it turns out that I did. Still can't really believe it."

"You just needed to change a little. To grow up some, lose the fake confidence and get your hands on something real."

"Change my look, too. That probably helped."

"Now who's being narcissistic."

"Please," I pushed a hand back through my hair. "I am beautiful," I managed a passable imitation of her and she beat my chest with a tiny fist in retaliation but she was giving me a sly smile.

"You don't go down that road either," she cautioned me.

"Fine. Fine. What's Ruby up to?" I asked.

"Still sleeping. I am an early riser, I wasn't sure you'd be up."

"Late to bed and early to rise? Aren't you burning your candle at both ends? And I was just up trying to turn my needle into a feather."

She shrugged. "I can't help it. It's a part of who I am. Did you have any luck?"

"Not really, no. I'm starting to doubt that I have Ozpin's brand of magic. My sisters didn't fight with it either or anything like that."

"Maybe you just need more time or more faith."

"Maybe…" I trailed. I looked down at her and she gave me an odd sort of pleading look her lips pursed out and her eyes closed. She looked scrumptious like that. I figured what she wanted and I bent down and I kissed her again while she hummed in satisfaction.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I never even got to drive the bike yesterday. We were attacked by Cloud's sisters," Ruby said.

"What? You were? Why is this the first I'm hearing about this?" Yang asked around the dining hall breakfast table.

"You got in late, remember? You and Blake both. We were already asleep by the time you got back," Ruby responded. "Cloud took it poorly. I thought the experience might have knocked some screws loose for him."

"You mean a few more screws loose. Cloud doesn't scream stability."

"Blake!" Weiss hissed.

"No, no," I said. "Blake's got a point."

"Well you don't have to agree with her," Weiss muttered. She shook her head at me. Plait waving slightly as she did. We'd split up and she'd gone back to her room in the early AM to get it done.

"She does though. I'm not the sanest of individuals."

"That's not your fault," Ruby told me. She reached out and stroked my arm.

"So I have more excuses than your average person. Salem's influence, the way I was grown, probably some other factors I can't think of… the list goes on." I shrugged through a bite of eggs. "Plus I think I did almost lose it yesterday. My head still hurts off of it."

"You sure that's not just because what's her name shot you in the head a couple of times?" Ruby asked.

"Saphron. And not entirely."

"How many times did you get shot exactly yesterday evening?" Blake asked.

"I forget. She was really hitting me in the head a bit. I'm not immune to headshots."

"Then she hit you with that knife…" Ruby reached out and touched my face. "She cut your cheek. You'll have a little scar there, I think."

I reached up and touched where I'd been cut next to Ruby's own fingers. There was a triangular scab on my cheek. Ruby was probably right.

"And there goes my good looks. You will be missed, we hardly knew ye."

"Oh stop it. You'll look fine," Ruby sighed exasperatedly but she smiled up at me.

"They never really got through my aura. A bit like you. You got shot yesterday too."

"I was fine." She waved off. "My aura protected me from everything but a bit of pain. Thanks though."

"A bit late for that kind of worry, isn't it?" Yang asked.

"It's the thought that counts." Ruby returned. "And Cloud was really out of it last night. He was delirious and talking about a family reunion."

I shuddered.

"A family reunion for Cloud. Get me the fuck away. His family is problems," Yang said. "No offense Cloud but your family has issues."

"I'm really the only one with issues. All my sisters seemed fine. The ones I met did at least."

"They tried to kill you," Blake pointed out. Jabbing a fork at me as she did.

"I think I'm the black sheep," I muttered. "They even seem to get along with Mother fine. No, it's just me that has a problem. I am the failure, after all."

"And your sisters are all successes?" Oscar asked. He'd been quiet in his new huntsman outfit. A suit jacket with a white undershirt and orange gloves.

I nodded.

"Well according to who? The people that made you all? Those aren't good people anyways. What would they know about being a failure or a success."

"Yeah. We're not taking a bunch of mad scientists' word on it," Ruby followed. "You're not a failure to us, Cloud."

I took a bite of banana and said nothing. They didn't really get it. I was a failure in a scientific sense. Not a moral one. According to Ironwood I was liable to just fall apart at some point. I wasn't built to last. I was just a prototype for those models which came later.

"Do you know your sisters' names?" Blake asked.

"Iris, Juniper, Kolumbine, Saphron, Violet, Lily, and Lavender," I told her.

"They're all flowers. They have pretty names, at least," Yang said. She took a forkful of her own food.

"I told the others this but they're like car models, the successes."

"That sucks to think about people like cars. And you're what? Jealous of that?" Yang asked.

"I wish I'd been built better. I guess. You heard Ironwood. I'm going to just fall apart," I defended my feelings. It sucked to think about myself as the kind of failure I was.

"Some kind of stigma will get you," Blake murmured. "You'll die from it and die young."

"Not if your aura kicks in," Ruby protested. "You could live a little longer."

"How long am I supposed to want to live like that?" I wondered. "Dying from some kind of super cancer. At least with the Grimm or family I'd die fast."

"Bad, Cloud. No suicidal thoughts," Ruby scolded. She hit me, harder than flirtatious. "You need to _want _to live. Otherwise it won't work. Aura does what we want. Not what we need."

"Damn, Ruby, let him alone. He's going through a lot right now," Yang protested. "Just listen to his family problems."

"That still isn't the kind of line of thinking we want to encourage in him," Weiss retorted in Yang's direction. "We want him to be on the bonuses of living. Not thinking about how bad things could be."

"'How bad things could be,'" I quoted. "My fucking family is literally the worst, isn't it?" I asked nobody in particular. I took another bite of banana. "It's just me that's this side of fucked up as opposed to the other side. The other side of fucked up, that is."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	79. Flower Girl X

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Do you think that he's okay?"

"Ruby. He's fine."

"He always says that. But, ah-you know how it is. He didn't handle meeting his sisters very well."

"Well would you?" Weiss asked. She sliced forward into a Grimm. "I don't handle my family well."

"That's a bit different."

It was search and destroy time. Time to just kill monsters. Finally something I was good at. Helping Weiss and Cloud manage their parts of the relationship was hard. Not that they needed a ton of help but it was for me to worry about and for them to fall in love with one another like I had with both of them.

Saphron… the name of the girl with the gun and dagger. She'd wounded Cloud physically but I was more worried about the psychological damage she'd caused him. That they had all caused him. He had been delirious coming off of his bike. He'd been losing it. That made me more than worried. He had been talking about some kind of reunion.

One that would be between him and his family. His family… It seemed that he had it even worse than my own family did. We only had a problem child in Raven Branwen. And maybe my own mother I suppose, she'd died as hunters tended to do. It seemed that Cloud was the problem child in his own family. That was good news in his case. I mean Saphron had shot him. I remembered all their words.

'Ditch these girls,' and 'you'll always be our Jaune,' they'd said. They pleaded with him to come with them. They knew him at a time when he hardly seemed to know his own name. Hardly seemed to have his own identity. A moment when Salem was consuming him.

I sliced into Grimm black flesh with my scythe. That was what Crescent Rose was designed for. Not for fighting people but it was good at both. It tended to overwhelm opponents of all kinds. The sniper scythe was effective at long, medium, and short range.

My powers grew. Even if it wasn't at the incredible rate Cloud's had. But then I wasn't going to die an early death to a total bodily degenerative disease. He would. That bit at my heart. He was going to die and there was nothing I could do to save him. There was no miracle cure for the kind of bodily shut down Ironwood described. Cloud would die from it if nothing else took him first.

It was just… it was so unbelievably unfair. I finally had both my best friends and then there was the reminder that one of them would be taken from me sooner or later. Probably sooner if Cloud got his way. He didn't want to die like that and I could scarcely blame him.

I whipped my weapon around and took pot shots into a Sphinx. It died from the incredibly powerful rounds I had in Crescent Rose. It vanished into the powder that the Grimm always seemed to leave behind. Cloud would have taken those kinds of shots and come out almost clean.

I didn't want him to die at all. And I selfishly wanted him to cling to life if only for a little longer. I had to temper myself with the reminder we hadn't seen any of the symptoms of the kind of organ failure that we might expect later down the line with him.

Here I went again. Like I could hardly wait for my heart to break. I needed him. The thought of life without him left me unbelievably empty. Was this all that love was? Jumping from one hurtle to the next? It hurt so much this way.

It was what Blake had described and why Penny had encouraged me to let him go. He was the man of my dreams, though. It wasn't in the strength he possessed but in its neighbor. His dedication. He worked so hard and to have things end this way was so unfair. I refused it. A plea against fate to take him. I didn't want to relinquish him. I could imagine myself sobbing over his coffin. I would carry it too. I was strong enough, certainly. Weaker than he was now but strong enough to carry him to his grave.

Was this all that love was? It hurt so much. So much more than anything else had. He was going to die! He was going to die. He was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I let my rage out with a scream against the nearest monster. I clipped the Chimera's wings then turned to petals and dashed around to its neck where I pulled up with a gunshot down for momentum.

It felt so toxic. But I couldn't help it. I felt so toxic. How could life hurt me like this. I clipped a Beowulf's leg and crippled it before I whipped my weapon around and shot it with a shout.

I dashed back in a burst of petals. It was so unfair. I wanted so much more. I wanted to drain him. Of all the life that I knew he held. I couldn't help it. I liked him. And like I told Yang, so what? Instead I seemed to be addressing the universe as I clipped another monster with my massive blade.

I twisted it around my body and pulled and brought down another monster. I dived in. It was all I could do to find release. Killing monsters was all I could rediscover myself in.

This couldn't be what love was. Just waiting for him to die or for his enemies to take him. Violet and Lavender had been the other two's names and they bore semblances like his. Violet had his speed and Lavender had the power to expend charges of immense strength.

They beckoned me to do more. To fight harder. I panted before I approached another Chimera mid petal burst. I swung around its neck and took its head off with my sheer momentum.

I screamed as I did so. It was so unfair. He was going to die. I didn't worry about anyone else though I knew Weiss was supporting me with glyphs to help me maintain my pace.

I slashed and cut and kicked and shot my way through hordes of demons. It was toxic. But it was the sort of environment I thrived in.

I wanted to have his kids one day. I wasn't sure what Weiss felt about it but I wanted to bear his children. They'd be so cute. I wanted to have them and carry them. That might have been selfish of me, too. I could hardly tell what was and wasn't selfish in this position. So close to him. I wanted his children. Our children. I wanted a family. A big one at that. But who knew if he would live that long. I wanted to have his children. I wanted all the misery that came with having kids just to see the bright faces of my babies. Our babies, that was.

Our babies. I fought with a renewed virve. I dragged Crescent Rose around my body and then upwards and split the face of a Sphinx in two. I was angry. I was furious. The air felt thin but I scarcely needed to breathe.

Here I go again… I slashed down a creeper with ease and put my boot on the head of another. Weiss launched me into the air with a glyph and I cut down another monster. A Chimera. I… I hated them. These demons.

As far as I knew, this was all that love could be. Jumping through worries. My mother had died so young for me. Would Cloud be that same way for my own babies. I couldn't imagine having them with anyone else. I needed him. I needed him to live.

It felt like some kind of messed up dream. One I'd wake up from and Jaune and I would be sharing a tent. He'd rouse me from my nightmare and this would all be over. Except it never came.

I was a siren of destruction on the battlefield. Just because Cloud could beat me now didn't make me any less imposing.

It was a long term dream, having his babies. I didn't know if Weiss shared it with me. We were too focused on the here and now to really talk about that. The thing was that Cloud didn't have much time. What was the best I could hope for? I really didn't even know that about our situation. Would he die at twenty five. Or would he start to falter at thirty. Maybe I'd get lucky and he'd make it as far as forty. I could start that family by then but I couldn't finish it. I'd have to raise them without their father and who knew if Cloud would even be willing.

He might decide he didn't want kids and what would I do then? I couldn't force him. I couldn't in good conscience trick him. I wasn't sure where he stood on the issue. I needed to talk to him. I wanted a family though. A big one. Seven or eight children seemed a bit much but I wanted at least three, I think. I'd settle for two or even one if that was what he was willing to give. I just had no idea. I wanted my babies. I wanted my family.

That was if he didn't die fighting Salem sooner which seemed likely too. He was resisting her but day by day she took something from him. And seeing his sisters had only accelerated that.

And what if I was just passing along his own degenerative disorder to my kids. To my children. I couldn't bring them into the world just to watch my own children fall apart in my arms. Their little bodies dissolving in my hands. Aura could only do so much and while I was sure that they would have theirs unlocked young I didn't want to consign them to die young.

My dreams of an XXL family seemed to be dying.

"Weiss?" I asked during a lull in the fighting.

"Ruby?" She wondered right back.

I bit my lip before I schooled up my courage. "I want to have his kids. I always wanted a big family."

"Ruby…" she trailed at a whisper.

"But he might die. Let's face it. He will die. I could die too but Cloud will die and he'll probably die before forty. And I'd like his last name at some point. I love him. I don't know what you think but I'd always want you to be involved with that."

"What are you saying? That you want to start now?"

"I don't know. If it's my only chance that I'll get then maybe. I want his kids. Plural. As in two or three. Maybe even four. I want a lot. "

"That's… that's so many." It sounded like far too much for her.

"I want a big family," I repeated. "And you?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'd have one or two kids. Probably one," Weiss said back. "I haven't been thinking about it too much. There's been Salem to consider. She won't die. What if I'm just passing that along to his kids."

Oh shit. I hadn't even thought of that. What if I was passing along his curse? His burden. It was in his genetics after all.

"I don't know. I just… I always wanted a big family. And now that I have him I know that he'd be an excellent father. I just don't know…"

"You don't know if he'd live long enough." Weiss finished. She named my fears one at a time. "Or if he'd agree to have them. What if he decides the risk is too great? It'd be wrong to trick him, however possible."

"They'd be so cute though… but yeah." I agreed. "I've been thinking about it. Ever since he brought up how he's going to die from, like, super cancer."

"The stigma, Blake called it," Weiss said softly. "She's right."

"Do you want kids, Weiss?" I wondered quietly.

"If… if I met the right person. Then I always thought I would. And… and I suppose I have, met the right person. Right people, that is. He's strong and mature. He'd be a wonderful father and you would be a great mother. You're so gentle and tender."

"He's sweet and kind," I disagreed in part.

"He is. But it would be wrong to trick him. Or to try and have his kids without him knowing. I've been on the pill since I was sixteen. And he could always decide that's how things should stay and I would struggle to disagree with him. I suppose I'd have one or perhaps even two but not without his express consent."

I chewed on my lip. "I'd want my kids to grow up with yours. Their brothers or sisters."

"Ruby…"

"Just so long as so many wasn't too much to overwhelm him. We'd be there too so they wouldn't ever be alone. We'd do it together." It sounded like a good plan. It just depended on a few things. Like Cloud living. For goodness sake, like him living. How could I even think that?

"Ruby, he could really die. Do you think you could do it without their father."

I bit my lip even more. "Maybe. I'm not sure. I want his children though. Even if it's just to carry some piece of him forward. You know?"

"Have you talked to him at all about this?"

I shook my head. "Amongst everything else there hasn't been a good chance to talk about our future. About _our_ future. And I want one. Even if we can never take Salem down."

"I don't know that I'd bring a child into this world with Salem in it," Weiss returned. "Could you? With such evil present."

I whined a little. "I'm not sure. I want Salem gone too but I still want my life. I don't want her existence to stop me from living mine."

"I suppose… you don't want one now, do you?" Weiss seemed hesitant. But my answer was fast.

It felt like my stars would never line up, though.

"No. I'm not ready yet. But who knows how much longer Cloud will be around? It's got me thinking."

"You could always meet somebody after him."

"No." It was all I said. It was all I could say. There would be nobody like him after him except Weiss and I couldn't have her children. Medical science had gone far but it wasn't that good yet. Not past special projects and after their father I wouldn't want that for my children. Not for my babies.

"I-I suppose that's true. Nobody quite like him, huh? I suppose one or even two wouldn't be so bad. Especially if I was having them with you," Weiss murmured.

"I want my family. It just seems impossible now."

"I don't know what to tell you, Ruby."

"I was raised without my mother and I turned out like this. Not so bad." If I did say so myself. "Yang helped but it was mostly just Dad and Qrow. You and I could do an even better job. Someplace quiet. Away from the big cities. Especially if their father is still around."

"That sounds like a wonderful dream, Ruby."

"Not just a dream, Weiss. A plan. I want this. Even more so if Cloud's plan to stop his mother works."

"Ruby…"

"And I'll make cookies all the time and it'll be perfect."

"Ruby… what if he says no. What if the risk is just too much. I said I'd struggle to argue with him if he said so. Wouldn't you?"

"Of course. But they'd be so cute though. With their father's eyes and maybe his hair."

"He does have handsome eyes," Weiss agreed. "I always thought yours were prettier though."

"Aw…" I trailed off. "Maybe a bit of both. The benefits of having more than one. A whole bunch. Arms full of babies."

"We should get back to work," Weiss said quickly. I didn't push her.

We did get back to work. Weiss and I worked well as a team. Her glyphs augmented my speed and my speed allowed me to support her where no one else could. We slaughtered Grimm by the dozens together.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	80. All for Today I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I watched my hand tremor.

It could have been caused by so many things. The meds, Mother's influence on me, or I could be seeing the first signs of that sort of decline that Ironwood said to expect.

My hand still shook.

I clenched it into a fist. I wanted to draw my weapon but there was nothing to slay. I was sick. And what was the best I could hope for in terms of recovery? Nothing in the longest term. Maybe even nothing on the shortest term view, either.

Ruby and Weiss were all I had to keep me going. And they did after I ran into my sisters. That had been hard. It had been difficult to see them. It had jarred me more than a little to see Lavender, Violet, and Saphron. I could only imagine what seeing the others would do to me. And I was doomed to run into them eventually.

I could feel them on the surface of my mind. Crawling around on the surface of my skin.

"Launch is in two months," Ironwood debriefed. "And I have more to share with you. However…" he leveled a look at me. He wasn't sure if he could share it with me. Everyone else, sure. But me, the possible traitor, it was harder to tell.

"We can trust him, James. He brought the relic to us after all," Oscar tapped his cane against the ground in an Ozpin like fashion. "And he killed Tyrian. Who knows what damage he could have caused in the city if Cloud hadn't stopped him."

"Very well. It concerns the winter maiden. She passed. Winter Schnee is now the winter maiden."

"Is she…" Weiss trailed off. Concerned for her sister. I watched Ruby give her hand a comforting squeeze from my position closest to the door.

"She's recuperating," Ironwood informed her. "The process of transferring the power is not entirely easy on a person. Fria is gone, however."

The winter maiden is dead. Long live the winter maiden.

"Should be easier to hide this way. The bunker was a bit conspicuous," I muttered, arms crossed by the elevator. "I was able to find out what was in it. There's no reason Cinder wouldn't have been able to learn about it too."

"I should hope that trade military secrets are harder to come by than that and that you are the exception rather than the rule," Ironwood returned.

"Then be disappointed and surprised. Cinder was able to find the fall and spring maidens. Then she killed them. She's dangerous and resourceful," I shot back. "Why wouldn't she be able to find winter?"

"We'll be doing everything we can to keep Winter safe while she learns how to use her powers. In the meantime we will be relying on you and Ace Ops to hold off Cinder when she comes. Or to take her down," Ironwood calmly stated.

"She's in town according to my criminal contacts." Qrow gave me a look at that.

"You built up a network? Earned some favors?" He asked.

"Pretty much."

"How good is it?"

"It's decent but it's got holes in it. My sisters were able to dodge detection and attack us. Three of them. The same three that attacked you all in Argus."

Qrow nodded but he eyed me warily enough. Which was fair I suppose. I deserved to be watched. I needed to be watched. Who knows what might come roaring through the cracks in my psyche. At least Qrow was watching me. He was onto me. That was good news. I trusted him to do his duty when it came to me where some people like Ruby or Weiss might falter. He'd kill me if he had to. Or try to, at least. I wasn't sure where we would come up now days in a fight.

I might still have an edge on him. But he still had decades more experience than I did. I had more combat time relative to my time alive than anybody else on the planet except maybe Penny and I was pretty sure I had her beat in that department.

"What about Robyn winning the election?" Yang asked. "Are you going to tell her about the tower?"

"She knows," I said. "She found out from the same source I did. I was there."

"I need to jam these leaks…" Ironwood muttered. "Though that explains why she's been leaving the supply trucks alone and hasn't brought up changing their course anymore. How long did she find out ago?"

"Maybe a week before my voluntary incarceration. So like three or four weeks ago."

"I've got a meeting with her about keeping my council seat. I could use every edge I could get. Do you know anything else, Mr. Strife?"

"Not really. She's got a lie detection semblance."

Yang let out a low whistle. "That's handy."

"The range is short but it works. I saw it in action."

"I already knew that. Do you have anything else for me?" Ironwood asked.

"One of the members of the Happy Huntresses has the ability to make an invisibility field. That's about it for me, though."

Ironwood blinked. "I didn't know about that."

"I can do some more digging around. All my contacts owe me a big helping of favors."

"Do it," Ironwood ordered. "I want to know all of the Happy Huntresses' semblances."

"I can go with," Qrow grunted.

"If you insist," I returned. "I'll probably mostly just be making calls on my scroll. Not even sure if I'm headed into town but if I am I'll shoot you a message."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I made my calls once the meeting was adjourned down in my room. I'd just come back and meet with Ironwood before the meeting he had with Robyn Hill.

"Bisque here."

"Hey Bisque. It's Cloud. I need to know about the Happy Huntresses' semblances."

"Calling in some of your favors, I see."

"Don't even start. You owe me a blank check after I pulled your asses out of that fire."

"Well you already know about May's semblance. The invisibility field. But Fiona Thyme's got this wicked matter absorption semblance. It's touch based but she can just snatch up a whole plane if she needs to. Figuratively putting it in her pocket."

"Is that all of them?" I asked.

"Not quite. They have another member. Joanna Greenleaf. Her semblance is more combat oriented. It's super strength."

I typed a note of all that in my scroll so I wouldn't forget it.

"I'll give you a call if I need anything else."

"You're all business, Cloud. You could stand to relax," Bisque voice came through the little speaker a touch teasing.

"I relax all the time. Just not with you. Nothing personal."

"Who do you relax with?" He wondered. He sounded actually curious. Too bad. I wasn't about to tell him it was my two girlfriends.

"None of your business. Is that all you can give me on the Happy Huntresses?" I asked. Ironwood would want to know more if I could get it.

"Pretty much. Maybe there are a few details I'm forgetting but that's about it," he answered. "That's the important stuff. Their semblances. They all use crossbows. Including Hill herself. The others use these staves."

"Tell me about the weapons."

"They're crossbow staves. I don't know." I could imagine him shrugging. He really was clueless. He needed to be taking in these kinds of details. It could save his life against hunters.

"What kind of bolts do they fire?" I pressed him further. "Are they magnetic accelerated rounds? Do they use dust bolts?"

"They're not magnetic or anything like that but the bolts can probably be modified with dust, yeah." He said. "A lot of weapons are like that. Easy to modify with dust. My new gun is like that too."

"How big are the bolts?" I demanded.

"Coin sized. Maybe, one tenth piece. Then they're a few inches long. Four or five. Hill's weapon has these blades on it too. It's like some kind of fan or accordian. It's got blades to either side of it. But it's a crossbow as well," he answered.

"Thanks. Keep an eye out for the people on my list and contact me as soon as you hear anything. It's important," I returned. "People could die."

"I'll let you know if I run into anything on them. Taurus hasn't been by again. He must be laying low. Not everyone has an illusionist like you do. Some of us lowly people have to play hide and seek with the law."

"Boo hoo," I deadpanned. "I feel so sorry for your terrorist asses. Just let me know about the list. These people are bad news on a good day. They don't care about faunus rights. They actively want good people to die."

"Alright, alright. We'll keep an ear to the ground. See you around, Cloud," he began to wrap up the conversation.

"Laters," I hung up on him.

I shot Ironwood a message. He fired one back almost instantly with his implant. He didn't have a scroll. He had a thing in his head. The orders were to kick back until he got some free time. He was a busy guy, after all. I practically just left one meeting with him. I just hoped it wouldn't be too late before his meeting with the leader of the Happy Huntresses. My information could give him an edge.

"Hey kid. We headed into town?" Qrow asked me.

"Doesn't look like it. I got what I needed. Just off the one phone call."

"We haven't had the chance to talk," Qrow said.

"Sorry. I guess we both were busy. Don't tell me you missed me."

"Don't give me that snark. I'm not sure I like you around my nieces. Knowing what we know now. You turned on us. Even if it wasn't on purpose. I'm not sure I like the idea of you and Ruby alone."

"Ruby keeps me sane," I defended. "I need that in my life. I'd lose it without her. I'm pretty sure she likes being alone around me, too."

"Kids don't always know what's good for them. That's when an adult like me has got to step in."

"I can't help but notice you're talking to me alone about this rather than with her. What? Do you know she wouldn't take it well?"

"Come on kid. You can't tell me you think you're good for her. Do the right thing."

"What the fuck is the right thing?" I wondered.

"Staying away from the people you could hurt. I did it cuz' of my semblance when I was younger. Hell, I did it my whole life. It was the right thing to do," he lectured gruffly.

"So I should leave again? That would break her heart," I argued back.

"In the short term. But she would be alive. Or doesn't that matter to you?" He asked rhetorically.

"It means the world to me," I countered. And it did.

"Then do the right thing. Stay away from her. Even though it hurts you. Even though it might drive you mad. I've been there. It sucks but it's what things like you and I have to do." He didn't call us people. We didn't deserve to be called such.

"I can't. I just got her back."

"Damn it, boy! It's what you should do! She'd move on eventually. Even if you never do," he was shouting at me in my room now.

"Uncle Qrow?" There was a small but firm voice from behind him. It was Ruby. Her eyes were fierce. "Leave him alone."

Qrow sighed. He shook his head but he left. He knew he couldn't beat her. It was what she wanted.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Cloud?"

"Ruby," I answered.

"Do you think you'll have kids?" She asked. She laid on my chest in my Atlas Academy bunk. She was so small. She fit comfortably on top of me and I traced small circles on her back with my fingers as we lay together.

"Probably not. I hate my father for consigning me to this." I waved my free hand down at my body. "It would be immoral for me to have children. To do the same thing to somebody else. It would be selfish," I responded.

"What if Salem was gone?" She pressed on. Her palm flat against my chest. I needed her to understand but I didn't want to break her big ol' Ruby heart.

"Well… maybe. That's a big if, though. I've never really thought about it. Where's this coming from?"

"I've always wanted a big family," she returned. "And I want you."

"Gotcha…" I was quiet for a long time but it seemed like she was content to wait for me to speak again, her big silver eyes looking up at me. Something large in them… so I thought about it. Mostly aloud but I gave it some thought. "I don't know what to tell you, Ruby. What if I'm just passing along the worst parts of my life? My degeneration? The mind control? I can't do that to somebody. I wouldn't wish that on my enemies. Let alone my own children."

"What if you're not? It would be a new life. It would be something wonderful." She put her chin on my chest and looked up at me while I held her in my arms. I paused in tracing shapes on her.

"Another big if. At least to me," I confirmed.

"Do you want kids, though. Do you _want_ them? You've just been bringing up reasons you shouldn't have them."

"I really don't know. I hate my own parents. Like I really hate them for doing this to me." I gestured at my body like it meant something. "It's hard to imagine my own children not hating me. I don't want that, couldn't live with myself that way."

"We might never know unless we try."

"Could you do that to someone that you love? Could you do that to your children? Experiment with their life like that?"

"It was always going to be an experiment. That's what having children is."

"That's fucked," I said. "A baby would have no defense against Salem. We'd be raising Saphron or any of my sisters again."

"What if you already destroyed her body so much that she wasn't capable of that. What if you got the ideal scenario."

"We don't even know if that will work… Plus who knows when I'll kick the bucket."

"So no. You don't want kids."

"I don't want to shut you down. Not if it's something you always wanted. You could always find somebody else. Especially after I'm dead."

She hit my chest with her tiny fist. "I don't want somebody else. I need you."

"I don't know what to tell you. I might not be long for this world. I want you to be ready for that. For when I start to decline."

"I don't want to lose you. I can't imagine my whole life without you. Like that last month. It sucked. It hurt so much. I can't imagine that for years and years."

"Ruby… I will die from this," I leveled it against her. The raw truth. "I'll die from this stigma."

"Stop saying that. I heard Ironwood, too," she protested.

"Ruby…" I trailed.

"I don't want you to go," she dropped a nail in my coffin with that. It felt like she took years off my life by saying that line.

"I've got to go." I returned gently. "You'll still have Weiss," I reminded her softly. I kissed at her but her lips didn't move against my own. I drew back after a moment. The kiss was sad and passionless. I planted another on her forehead soft and reassuring.

"I need you both. I told you that," she fired back.

I squeezed her close to me. She let out a little groan as I did, it was practically a squeak.

"I don't want to die either. I'd rather stay here with you," I sighed. "But this is the burden of my life. The curse of my birth. One of them at least. I won't live a super long time."

"Sometimes it doesn't seem like that. Sometimes it seems like you want to die."

"Sometimes I do. Maybe a little. And I don't want to fall apart. That sounds like a shitty way to die. Can you blame me?"

I realized Ruby was crying. Soft silvery tears falling from her eyes like mercury. I brushed them away as best as I could. It left my thumb and her cheeks wet.

"Rubes…"

"I don't want you to go. I'll find a way to save you."

"I hate to see your heart breaking over this. Over me."

"You're worth it. You know that, don't you? You're worth getting upset over losing," she pleaded with me.

I was human garbage. Why couldn't she see that? I was trash and I was meant to be thrown away. That's what I was supposed to do and be. It's what would happen, too.

"Stop. It." She snarled up at me. She hit me again. Fairly hard. It was like she could read my thoughts. She surprised me. I looked down at her in shock. Her fury surprised me. It was raw and full of power. I could taste it on her aura where before there had been sadness and melancholy there was a touch of rage now.

"Rubes…"

"You're worth it. I won't abandon you. I'll not leave you, my loved one."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	81. All for Today II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"What can you give me about Hill and her huntresses?" Ironwood asked me as we walked briskly up to his office.

"Fiona has some sort of matter absorption semblance. Evidently she can put a plane in her pocket and walk away. It's touch based and probably limited to non-living things, I'm speculating on that bit. Still, it's supposed to be fairly wicked. May has the invisibility field. It's got a decent radius and it's mobile. It fucked with one of my own operations once. Sabotaged me. Then there's Joanna. She's got super strength," I informed him. "You want me here for this? I've had a run one with them before."

"You'll be with me," he affirmed. He swung the doors open to his office and he sat down at his desk.

I took to a corner by the window. I folded my arms. My sword hilt extended over my head.

"Their weapons?" Ironwood asked me.

"These crossbow staves. Probably modifiable with dust rounds. Except Hill. She's got a crossbow with blades on either side. My man described it as like a fan or an accordian."

"Your man?"

"A union leader down in Mantle. That's how he worked with Hill. You want the details?"

He shook his head. He steepled his hands before him and we waited. Penny came skipping into the room. She saw me, smiled, and waved at me. I grinned back at her and nodded.

"Oh are we acting brooding? I'll do my best." She imitated me by the far side of the long window.

"I don't need to act. I am brooding," I laughed back. "But yeah. A little."

"Hill should be up any minute."

"Good. I was getting tired of looking relaxed."

"I'm glad you two get along," Ironwood mumbled. "It bodes well. For you in particular, Strife."

"Eh, it's mostly Ruby." I kicked my foot around, rolling out my left ankle.

"Don't say that. I thought we were friends."

"We are, Penny. I'm trying to brood, though."

"I see…"

Hill pushed her way into the room with a small smile. She took me and Penny in. She had Fiona with her and another woman I recognized as Joanna Greenleaf from a photo.

Fiona nudged Hill. "That's him. Cloud Strife. The killer mercenary."

Hill glanced at me. "I've heard a bit about you, done some nasty business in my town. What? You working for Ironwood now?"

"For the foreseeable future. Judge ordered. You could probably find out about it. Given your seat," Ironwood returned from behind his steepled fingers.

"You give up the merc life?" She asked. Her question directed at me.

"For now," I answered.

"You're a dangerous man, Strife, I'd be glad to hear you're playing for the good guys. If that's what's going on here."

"It sort of is. You fucked with my operation. Don't think I don't know."

"I did nothing illegal. Nothing anybody could prove at any rate." She showed her teeth. I liked her. "Not like you and Taurus."

"You heard anything about him?" I wondered. "I have a blood score to settle with the bastard."

"Not a peep. He's been laying low. Like I thought you and your illusionist were. Color me surprised to find you standing beside the General. Right beside the protector of Mantle after the shit you pulled."

Maybe this was why Ironwood wanted me here. To divert her focus. I doubted he wanted me for moral support. He wanted me on as a distraction. So I'd be as distracting as possible.

"Those charges were dropped," Penny said.

"You hear that?" I asked. "It's like I never did it."

"But you did do it," Fiona spat. "You killed people."

"Interesting way you phrased that," Hill said with a hand raised at Fiona beside her.

"I only killed other criminals." I shrugged. "And I got time served with a hefty fine."

"Meaningless to someone like you," Hill countered.

"Not meaningless. Just the best I could have hoped for."

"But are you reformed? Do you serve Atlas and Mantle well?" Robyn wondered.

"To the very best of my ability, I protect the people now."

"Will you swear by it?" Hill held out her hand.

"Sure. I'll promise." I took her hand. Purple flowed over my hand as I took hers and it wreathed both of us. "What do you want me to say?" I asked. Words could be very particular.

"That you serve as a guardian to the people, now."

"I serve as a guardian to the people now." I echoed. I technically did before too. Her aura flashed green. It must have registered as true because she reclined looking satisfied.

"Now that that's settled we can get down to business. When will the new tower be ready for launch?"

"Classified. You shouldn't even know about the tower," Ironwood returned.

"But I do. And this will go smoother if we work together, General. I can vote in your favor or I can vote against you at every turn. I can even raise a vote of no confidence."

The General grimaced. I think that he hoped I'd buy him more time before the nitty-gritty.

Robyn leaned over his desk and spread her palms on it. Hunching over on him.

"What's it gonna be, General? I can do worse besides. I can petition to have your council seat taken away. How long will your precious tower take to get completed then. Work with me. I just want to talk."

"You want to talk for now."

"That's right," Hill returned. "I might change my mind based on what I hear, too." At least she was open and clear about it. The value of her prizing honesty.

"The launch is two months out." Ironwood stated.

He stood up and towered over Hill with her slumping over the desk. She recoiled back and stretched to her full height. It was still nowhere near the General and closer to me though she was tall for a woman.

"All of our attention has been on raising the tower and restoring communications between the kingdoms."

"Even though Mantle suffers," she murmured.

I thought about saying something like 'Mantle always suffers' but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't the time. Never let be said I couldn't be diplomatic.

"Some sacrifices have had to be made to get things done but we're in the final stretch now. No going back."

"I want things to get better for Mantle, General. And fast."

"I'm working as fast as I can," Ironwood vowed.

"I want you to slow down the launch of it means things can get better for Mantle. Diverting both supplies and huntsmen."

"That isn't practical."

"Practical be damned. Mantle always bears the lion's share of the suffering for Atlas. All for it's floating neighbor. You want me to not vote against you at every turn so this project gets completed? You're going to have to make concessions. That means voting my way on minimum wage increases and miner safety standards. Even if those safety standards set back your little project."

Ironwood sighed. It sounded like she had him in a corner.

"We are so close." He grunted. He sounded frustrated and exasperated. "So close to getting this project done. For everybody's benefit."

"Well it just got further away. One way or another. Not one more miner will die for this or anything else. They matter to me. What's it gonna be, James?"

"Friends call me James. You can call me Ironwood or General."

"Petty," she clicked her tongue. She had him in a vice though. She'd be petty and slow down the project too. She was a woman of her word. No one with a semblance like that wouldn't be.

"It sounds like I've got little choice. Just know that once my project is complete I won't back down so easily anymore."

"I'm counting on it, General," she turned on a clicking heel and left. Her tour de force departed with her.

"Sorry. I tried but she wasn't going to be distracted. Not by me and not by Penny."

Ironwood groaned. "The launch just got set back a month. Minimum. And if I start capitulating now who knows when it will end."

"She's a woman of her word. So you've got that going for you."

"At least it wasn't Jacque Schnee," Penny chipped in brightly. "This election could have gone much worse. She's willing to work with you if you work with her."

My scroll chirped. I pulled it out of my pocket.

"Strife. Who's this?"

"Aurum. I've got a hit on your lady friend. She's here. She's threatening me. She demanded my information. She was asking the same sort of questions you were. I need to know what that's about now."

"You don't. I'll be there."

"My life is on the line! She immolated my men!"

"Try and hold her there. I'm coming. Let's get lucky and kill her."

"Sorry Cloud but I have got to do what I got to do to protect my business."

"Just hold her. I'm on my way."

I cut the connection.

"Something important?" Ironwood asked.

"I got a hit on Cinder. She's about to burn one of my contacts to death. I need to get there."

Ironwood nodded. "Do you need reinforcements? I'll call Ace Ops."

"Better call Team RWBY too and put them on standby with Qrow. She's at The Den."

"I'm sending Penny with you."

"Let's go Penny." I said with a nod by the door. "You and I will fly there."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Penny and I swooped down on The Den. "You take her accomplices. Let me worry about Cinder."

"Do you believe that you can defeat her?"

"We're about to find out." Lets hope that sounded confident.

I bust in the door to find the club empty and quiet. The lack of music and the distant smell of inhalants gave the place a void like feeling. It was strangely empty and lacking.

"Sorry Cloud. It's nothing personal. Just business, you understand." It was Aurum's voice coming from the top floor above me. "She forced me. You get it."

There was the clink of glass heels on the floor above us and Cinder Fall came into view.

"You," she purred. "Jaune Arc was it? I owe you for when last we met." Her one eye glowed like embers.

"It was. Not anymore. It's Cloud now."

"A change in name will mean little to my mistress. You're her son."

"Hardly. She didn't raise me," I shot back. I drew the broadsword from over my shoulder. I gripped the enormous handle beneath the titanic cross guard the shield helped form.

"She has bade me not kill you and your sisters have a certain fury I would dread but whatever happens happens," she sung. She spread her fingers and a flame grew across them. "You would have had me last time if not for my maiden powers. Powers which have doubled. I'm sure you are aware. And you've been spying for me. Through this rabble but you've been on the look out nonetheless."

She made Aurum call me, then. Aurum dashed out the exit, trying to keep his life intact and escaping while we were both distracted. Cinder set a trap for me. Sustrai stepped out from behind Cinder with Black in tow. I watched and my vision faded as Sustrai narrowed her eyes at me. She was trying to use her semblance on me.

I shouted at Penny and I watched a blurring kaleidescope fly up to them and slash out at Emerald with ten floating blades appendages. My vision snapped back into focus and in perfect time for me to see Cinder descending on me with flames pouring from her feet to aid her assault. As she flew she left fire behind on the glass dance floor. I met a strike from her similarly glass weapons and stuttered back a step on the dance floor.

I activated my semblance and brought my weapon around to match her. I drew an electric crystal from my pocket. I crushed it in my palm and sent a thunderbolt at her. She blocked it by crossing her weapons and her one eye flared at me with the power of the maidens. She gestured and a half dozen fireballs floated into place before her. She blew gently. Like she was blowing a kiss at me, I didn't catch it, and I was forced to dance out of the way of the fireballs.

I went through them. I rolled and floated towards her through the conflagration. I stabbed my sword downward and tore up glass as I pushed it screeching across the dance floor towards her. She met my strike with both her weapons crossed.

Then she struck out at me in high, low, high fashion, alternating each blade. She twirled with the motion and I was forced on the defensive, blocking each one of her attacks. I never let her truly get close to me with the enormous blade between us.

She waved her palm and a flare shot up inside the tight room towards me. I couldn't be sure how Penny was doing against her two opponents because I was too focused on Cinder.

I blocked her and seesawed my weapon down on her. Sparks flew from her glass weapons from where my Titania edge but down into them.

"I'm going to kill you this time. We'll see how my Mother takes that," I whispered. I spoke softly as I threatened her. As I made my vow.

Lightning ran up her weapons and into my arms. It made me tremble in pain for a moment before she pushed me off of her and kicked me in my exposed chest. Then she flew at me.

"Aren't you quite the little rebel. Doing what makes mommy mad?" She laughed at that.

"Oh I'll piss her right the fuck off. Can't imagine she was happy I didn't bring the relic to her."

She pointed her sword at me and there was a _kazzap_ of lightning. I blocked it on the edge of my weapon but she just swung her weapon around her body again. A trail of fire emanating from it and growing larger until she whipped a lash of red hot blaze right at my head.

I rolled again and came up thrusting at her, forcing her to block. She swung at me with one of her glass weapons but at the far range of my weapon I was too distant and she miscalculated.

She dropped into a crouch and pointed both her weapons at me and there was another mighty_ kazizzle _of electricity. I jumped over it and brought my weapon down on her head in a move that forced her to block with both of her own. It shattered the dance floor around us for yards and yards. All the way to the edge near the bar.

"You're right of course. She was most displeased. She will punish you for it given the opportunity. I think not, however. You will die here."

She waved her hand and a gale picked up. All the glass from the once smooth and now shattered dance floor flew up from it. She gestured at me and I hunkered behind the wide edge of my weapon and weathered the storm of glass pellets. Some struck into my aura and chipped it away. I held firm against the wind.

Blue light still licked at my body but it seemed like my semblance would not be enough. I couldn't imagine spending it and then being forced to fight her without it. If I spent it, when I spent it, it would have to be for the kill. I could use it for no other purpose. And it would probably have to be the octa-slash. No other attack would do enough damage in a single go to take her down except maybe a Finishing Touch.

I'd hardly touched her. Hadn't touched her, I realized.

When the gale broke down she hit me hard with both flaming feet. Not as hard as Penny had with a similar move but hard enough to send me stumbling back. Then she delivered three lighting fast diagonal slashes to my torso. She ripped away massive chunks of my aura.

Then she thrust forward and I blocked to the side. Her weapon buried in my personal soul based force field to the hilt right next to my head. She still managed to rip away a chunk of blue light from my body.

Things were seriously not good. Her magic was too much for me and her competence with a blade in each hand was nothing to scoff at.

I kicked her back. A move that caught her in the gut. Then I swung my blade towards her head in a massive strike that she caught with both her weapons. Making yet another 'x' shape. It seemed to be her go to in order to block against my titanic sword.

I screamed and flew at her. Closing the little distance between us with a shoulder check that knocked her to the ground.

I danced at her, flowing like water as she caught herself on one hand and tried to cartwheel back but I chased her roll now that she was out of position. Now that she was in serious disadvantage and close to me I made to capitalize on it.

I caught up to her and hit her once vertically diagonally downward and to the right. Then I reversed and came diagonally up and to the left. Then I can back down on her diagonally and from the right once more in a staggering triple hit. The kind I'd seen do twenty-five percent or more of Ruby's aura when I wasn't Limit Broken. When I wasn't Limitless.

I didn't spend the charge on it but I did shout, a scream left my lips as I performed the move in exertion. It flung her back and into one of the bars and into the wall in a shattering of glass and bottles.

She flew out of the hole in the wall and through the crevice her body had left in the bar. A trail of flame coming behind her and at her feet. I flew to meet her and where we struck the ground rippled like it was made of liquid for a moment before elasticity caught up with it and it shattered.

I was taller than her. I was conventionally stronger, too. Especially while Limit Break was active and I slowly lowered my weapon down onto her while her back twisted from trying to match me in the crater on the floor.

She kicked my leg at the hip but I only grunted and took it. I took one hand off my blade and backhanded her hard with my knuckles. Then I slid forward a step and reversed my hand and grabbed her by the throat and picked her up into the air. I pulled her in and kneed her in the stomach hard enough to make spittle fly from her lips.

Then Mercury came flying and kicked me in the back. Then he shot me in the back with both of his boot guns.

I twisted to my feet again on a pocket of air. He was breathing hard. So was Cinder where I'd knocked the wind out of her.

I wasn't much better and now that they were alone Emerald let out a scream where Penny slammed her hard into a wall.

"Ma'am…" Mercury trailed.

"Save Emerald," Cinder hissed.

Then I gambled. I dashed forward like I was going to hit Cinder. Then I spent Limit on a thrust but not at her. I thrust up and into Mercury's aura and then into his chest in a crackle of violet energy.

Blood flew from his lips as I speared him. Penny had done enough work for this to pay off and from the sounds of things she'd defeat Emerald too.

"No," Cinder whispered. The battle was out of her favor.

"Yes!" I roared. The edge was ours now.

I watched as Emerald plucked herself from the wall and fell to her knees. A tear on her face as we all saw Mercury slide onto my six foot blade.

"Emerald! Get us out of here!" Cinder called.

I swung my sword and Mercury flopped off the blade. He was already dead. I flexed and started charging my next semblance. With slow promise I stood and began the charge. Soon.

"Emerald!" Cinder barked. I was assaulted with a massive illusion. Penny was too from the way she stepped back in shock on the second floor. A gigantic image of my Mother rose from the twisted glass and roared.

Cinder burned a hole in the wall and grabbed Emerald's sobbing form and fled. I was too shocked by the cyclopean vision of my Mother to move.

"Cloud!" Penny called to me distantly. I fell to my knees before the image of my Mother and held my hands up like I was expecting an attack, I fumbled my sword with dumb hands. My brain burned and my mind was ajar.

_Mother…_

I thought. And despite that I knew it was an illusion. Despite the distance between us I heard her answer.

_My son…_

"No…" I whimpered.

_Yes…_

The voice seethed.

_Yes… you belong to me… I am your mistress… _

I could feel her shadow on the corner of my mind. She twisted into me and trapped me between agonies I knew weren't true.

"Cloud are you alright?"

The massive image of my Mother faded. But she lingered on my brain. A growing pressure. I howled in pain. She raked at my body and I convulsed.

"Cloud, it wasn't real."

"She's in my… my… my…" I stuttered like a broken record player. Then I started to froth at the mouth. I seized on the broken dance floor.

_My son… my precious son… _

"Oh my gods!" I heard Penny cry. "Don't worry, Cloud, help is on the way!"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	82. Proud Ice Queen X

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Weiss's PoV)

"What happened to him?" I asked. I watched Cloud get carted away on a stretcher.

"Emerald summoned an image of Salem with her semblance." Penny stated in her informative tone. "He started to seize. I think the illusion triggered him somehow. Cinder used the cover it provided to make her escape."

"Without Mercury," Yang tapped the body of the warrior with her foot.

"Cloud killed him," Penny murmured. "He drove his blade through his chest. He died almost instantly. You can see the wound."

I could. A great blade had been jabbed under Mercury's ribs and out the other side. Cloud's broadsword was stained with Mercury's blood.

"So what? Cloud can't even look at Salem without having some kind of episode?" Yang asked.

"The image was a bit intense, even to me. Afterwards he started to ramble. I think he was trying to tell me she was in his mind," Penny told us. "He couldn't get the words out, though. I think she was using the opportunity to attack him. To start another of her hacking attempts."

"I hope he's okay…" Ruby mumbled. "He didn't handle meeting his sisters very well. This probably wasn't good for him."

"I thought he was going to die," Penny informed us, devoid of nearly all emotion.

"It was that bad?" I asked.

"He was really seizing and frothing at the mouth," Penny said. "I must report to Ironwood now. Excuse me."

She stepped away and took off like a jet. She soared overhead and in the direction of the academy.

"It's bad if he can't even look at her without having epilepsy. I don't think he'll be able to fight her. At least not physically. Not unless he gets much stronger mentally," I said. "When we fight her it'll have to be without Cloud's help."

"When we fight her…" Ruby trailed off. "I don't know how we'll be able to do it without Cloud. But if he really can't look at her then he'll never be able to help us."

"Maybe he'll get stronger," Blake said. She sounded like she didn't believe it, though.

"His meds aren't working," Ruby murmured. "They're supposed to prevent this but it doesn't seem like they did anything. Maybe we should let him go back to self medicating. He was doing relatively okay before he got on these meds. At least according to him."

"I don't know… all the doctors think that's a bad idea," I returned uneasily. "But maybe some of those meds he's on ar mye just making things worse."

"At least he got Mercury. That's another bad guy down and in Cloud's pocket," Yang said. "He's not useless."

"He would be in a fight against Salem," Blake muttered. She was right. "He can't fight in his condition."

"He might know more. We should ask him when he wakes up," Ruby murmured.

I couldn't even be mad about him getting in this fight. He had support. He let us know what was happening. It even seemed like he had grounds to say that he'd been winning based on Mercury's corpse. It just still wasn't enough. Salem had exploited a tiny advantage over him and it sounded like he'd almost died over it.

It was… unrighteously unfair. He'd done everything right. It just hadn't been enough. Salem was ruthless. Cloud often described her as a goddess. He said he felt like a dog next to her. I wondered how true that was. Salem was old, she had magic, she was on another level, even from the maidens. It sure seemed like she was unbeatable when she toppled Cloud so easily.

It was easy to drown in the hopelessness of it. Cloud was, for all his strength, vulnerable. And he was the only of his siblings on our side and they might all have magic too. It was seven against one in that department and that didn't even count the wicked witch, Salem, herself.

She had power over his mind and probably spades of other powers and she controlled the Grimm which at all times outnumbered humanity. It was bleak when you looked at things like that. From that perspective I could understand why Cloud felt so helpless. He was just one man and he couldn't even do enough magic to turn a needle into a feather and he was supposed to fight a goddess; one that needed little more than to be looked upon by him and he'd start to crumble.

Ruby's dreams of an extra large family seemed so distant and even more impossible. She wanted so much and Cloud would die in this fight against Salem in all likelihood. That was if he didn't turn on us again, this time for keeps like his sisters and side with his mother against the world.

He was shattered despite all his power. It seemed like he hadn't even begun to heal with Ruby's and my help. I wasn't sure we were doing anything for him. I wasn't sure he was doing more than delaying the inevitable. I wanted to be doing more. I wanted to be helping him for real. But what did that even mean and how could I accomplish that?

I could only love him as best as I was able even if it wasn't very much.

"Ruby…" I trailed. "Things don't look good for Cloud."

"I know, Weiss."

"I don't know how to get you what you want. I don't know how to save him from this."

Ruby let out a long sigh. "I… I know. But I'm not about to give up on him. Even if the odds are stacked against him. I won't give up. Tell me that you're with me."

"I am. I'm just… I'm scared for him. If he can't do this much, what can he do? It wasn't even like she looked at him. He looked at her. That's all it took to unwind him. She's… she's laying traps in his mind."

"She's worming her way into his subconscious. That's what he always says," Ruby muttered. "How do you resist something like that? It's horrible."

"It's psychic warfare. Maybe we need to come at it from a different angle."

"What do you mean?" Ruby wondered.

"I have… maybe an idea." Or the start of one. "We need to help him to not hate himself. We need to build a place in his mind that's secure. Without her influence."

"Can we do that?"

"I don't know. But we have to try, don't we. Otherwise we may as well give him up right now."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I had them," Cloud said from the hospital bed when he woke up. Ruby and I were beside him. I took his hand in both of mine. Rough callouses against my soft skin. I could feel his aura. Golden and tinged with blue. It was furious. "Penny and I, that is. We fucking had then and they slipped away. It was all my fault. I let her in. I gave her an opening into my thoughts."

"Is that how she got you?" Ruby asked.

"I… I was reminded of her. It made me think of her and she sort of… she penned me in. She corralled me. Once I started I couldn't stop. Once I thought of her it opened up the connection between us even wider. Like a damn bursting. I couldn't shut that faucet off. She just crawled right into me."

"Cloud, we want to help you. Weiss says she has an idea. One that could help you resist Salem."

Cloud looked up at me. Doubt and curiosity, both were well earned from his perspective.

"We want to build a place in your mind free of her influence. A sort of sanctum. A place where you can always retreat to if you need to and know that she isn't there," I told him. "Everyday we will spend time with you and we'll work on it together. It won't be time wasted even if we do fail."

"I...I could see how that could help. I just don't know where to start."

"Start with us and the time we've spent together," I said. "Start with Beacon and your time spent with Pyrrha. Just lay back and remember. Salem wasn't there then. She doesn't own that. You do."

"Pyrrha…" Cloud whispered. He shuddered a little. He got goosebumps down his arm where I held him.

"Breathe and relax," Ruby whispered. She stroked his head and lifted it up and set it in her lap. "Breathe and relax, Cloud. Salem isn't here right now. You're safe."

"Am I?" He didn't ask rhetorically. He seemed genuinely curious about whether he was free of her.

"Reach out to where she attacked you and see if you can feel her," I walked him through it like a meditation.

His breath hissed out. His blue eyes were a touch wild. "She's there. I can feel her. Mother…"

"Now come back to us. Is there a difference? Can you feel a difference?" I asked.

"I…" he breathed. He strained to relax, his eyes shut in focus. "I can feel a difference. There's a place where she is and there's a place where I am. But we're connected."

"Come back and be with us. You're safe here. We won't let you hurt anyone. You can relax," I whispered.

His eyelids fluttered at the sound of my voice.

"Can you stop me?" He wondered, purely wondering.

"Of course we can. And besides," Ruby said. "I don't believe that you would hurt us. I believe in you."

"We'll spend time with you every day and work on this. On where you can and can't feel her. We'll be with you every step of the way," I informed him patiently. My voice was as soft and melodic as I could make it without actually singing, though it came close at times. I wanted him relaxed and I patiently walked him through the exercise like I honestly knew what I was doing rather than just guessing. But it was the best I could do. It was all I could do.

I may not know what I was doing in full but he didn't really need to know that. I needed him to have this. Even if it didn't work for what we wanted it wasn't time spent in vain.

It was time spent trying to help him. That could mean everything to me and Ruby.

"I can feel her in the corner of my mind. Her tentacles are pulling at me. They want me to go to her," he whispered. "They call to me. They beckon at me."

"Now come back to us. Listen to the sound of my voice. You're safe here. We will guard you," I murmured. "We won't let you go. Not to her or to anyone. There will be no reunion."

"No reunion...What if I do something awful again?" He breathed. His eyes still slammed shut. "What if I hurt you?"

"You could never hurt us, Cloud, we know you could never do it," Ruby whispered. "Just like you could never hurt Ren and Nora." The breath whistled out of him. "That was all Salem. It was all her. Not you. Never you. It is not your fault. It's your mother messing with your head that's to blame."

Cloud's eyes flickered underneath closed lids. It looked like he might fall asleep. I took that as a good sign. I wanted him to be that relaxed. It was when he was tensed and panicked that Salem would have the most power over him, I believed.

"Surround her," I encouraged. "Be the one to box her in rather than the other way around. This is your mind. No one owns it or knows it more thoroughly than you do. This is where you reside."

He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He did it again. Then a third time.

"She calls out to me… I can feel not just her but my sisters as well. They're there. I feel them. I was always able to," he sounded a little relaxed. His voice was deep and smouldering.

"They aren't important. Build your walls. Breath deep. We have you here." I squeezed his hand tightly. I pulled his hand to my chest and hugged it like I was hugging him.

"We'll do this every day. You can talk to us about the things that you feel when we do it," Ruby stroked her hands through his hair. One over the other in a continuous wave. Down and back. Down and back. All over his scalp. "Or if you don't feel like talking we can do that too."

"I… maybe I could get used to this." He muttered. His eyes still closed. He seemed on the edge of sleep. Maybe he'd get some actual rest for once with our help.

I could only do what I could for him.

Ruby bent down and kissed his forehead.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was after one of our sessions with him that he transfigured the needle.

His head had been in my lap while Ruby sat straddling his wide body. He lay his head back and relaxed while we murmured our way through the exercise. Feeling out where Salem was and where he was in relation to that. His eyes moved like he was in REM sleep while I whispered in his ears.

Time spent with him was not time wasted. That was one of the perks of doing this. The three of us were just spending our time together. Even if for the most part it was time spent in relaxed silence.

He'd gotten up and shifted his attention to the needle. Shifting on his arms until he rose from the bunk. His eyes blurred and half awake and his hair in messy spikes. It gave him a handsome bedraggled look as he plopped down to focus on his next project. At first he didn't seem focused enough but his eyes fluttered closed and he began a wordless chant. His lips moved but he said nothing.

I was sure the needle was another experiment in helping Cloud with his focus in his battle against Salem. The way he said he was supposed to extend his will must also be a lesson in the sort of control we wanted him to master during our sessions with him.

He was sitting at his desk with his hand outstretched towards the needle. His eyes shut in focus as he worked. His lips moving soundlessly as he attempted the transformation. His aura flickered, relaxed and calm and jumped out over the needle. Then the needle began to wobble.

Ruby and I watched, enraptured, as the needle twisted and turned in place. Then it started to shift. It grew longer and more slender. It started to curve like a bow and though the hole in top never vanished, spikes grew from its side in a metallic curtain.

The prunes of the feather grew into place but the material never changed. It remained metallic with the spindles of hair like structures growing down from it.

When that was done Cloud slumped back in the chair and opened his eyes.

He reached out one hand and picked up the iron feather. The head of the needle had grown long and bent. The hole was still present but the shape of it as a whole had changed. He tossed it once into the air. "Well what do you know," he whispered. His will and mind had been enough to cause the needle to transform. His focus sharp enough to transmute the shape if not the material.

"Cloud…" Ruby whispered. "You did it…"

He dropped the metallic feather and it clunked against the desk duly. Metallic cillia shone in the soft light that trickled in through the window.

"It's clunky. But it's mine," he whistled.

"You have magic," I breathed.

"What does it feel like?" Ruby asked.

"It's… it's not so different from aura. Not really. I think. Maybe that's still holding me back but it feels about the same. Not real easy to distinguish the two." He sighed.

I picked the feather up and ran my thumb along the edge of the hairs. It was sharp enough to cut oneself on. It was, well, as sharp as a needle point.

"Can the maidens do this type of thing? Or is it all fire and lightning? Like dust." I asked.

"I'm not sure. Magic is confusing," Cloud said. "But whatever it is I have it. I guess I had better let Ozpin know."

"Aren't you proud?" Ruby asked. Cloud mostly sounded bored and tired. Like the feat had exhausted him. "You did it. You changed it."

"I feel like it's less important than any other progress I might have made. But maybe a little." His voice was low and had a sexy little rasp to it with the weary tone.

He reached over and ruffled Ruby's hair and she shone up at him. He didn't dare try that kind of display of affection with me. But he did give my cheek a kiss which I deigned to allow.

"I think it's thanks to these sessions. I think that they're going to save me, if anything will," he said.

"Well with praise like that how can we stop now?" I rolled my eyes. "I suppose we'll have to keep going and see what happens."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	83. I Got This I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"You transformed the needle, then." Oscar paced around towards me and examined my work. "I thought you had some of my magic working for you. It's good to have proof."

He picked up the metallic feather and examined the blade the hairs formed closely. It had a hole on its spine where the head of the needle had been and the spine was sharp at the other end like the point of the needle had been. Even I knew that it was sloppy work. But it was something.

"What is magic?" I asked. "Is it all lightning and wind like the maidens? Or is it transfiguring stuff and moving energies around? I don't understand," I said.

"Yes well, perhaps invariably it varies person to person. Even the maiden's powers. After all, no two seasons are exactly alike. I suspect your ability to fly comes from your magic rather than your semblance."

"My ability to fly?" I breathed. "I guess. I mean it started out being something I could only do when my semblance was active. It also used to be just a glide rather than real flight, too."

I could now really fly. I could gain and lose height at will once I got up to speed. Taking off like a jet in many regards. And the power made me fast, too. Not as fast as Ruby while she was mid petal burst but still quite fast.

"Practice makes perfect, Mr. Strife. It seems separate from your semblance in many other ways, no? It's something you have access to all the time rather than just when your semblance is active." Ozpin informed me of his thoughts on the subject. "Your strength too, and maybe your speed might be manifestations of magic rather than just your aura. You've grown very powerful in a short period of time through this sort of practice," Ozpin lectured. "I would be surprised if your magic continues to be like mine. Look at this feather, you didn't manage to transform the material. Your transfiguration seems weak. Your powers are different. Unique to you."

"So my magic is going to be different from yours, for sure. It's got a different basis. It comes out differently because of that. Limit Breaker just helps my progress along the way because that's how Limit Breaker works. It makes _me_ better. Including my magic. I even sometimes wonder if Limit Breaker makes me smarter too, while it's active."

"Indeed, your magic seems combat oriented. Mine has other subtle applications, like allowing me to move the maiden powers around. Like transfiguration and sometimes like flight as well."

"Anything I can do you can do better?" I asked.

"Perhaps not. Flight only manifests in some of my reincarnations. Each one of my bodies is different much like the maidens. Very rarely do I gain extreme speed or super strength like you possess. Indeed that is the same for the maidens," he went on. "The powers of the maidens usually coordinate with the powers of the elements. As you probably well noted. And sometimes they gain the power of flight as well."

"Cinder can fly," I agreed. "But each one is different. Some of them gain super strength or other powers," I said, understanding.

"At times. Magic is incredibly singular and unique to the user. It is not unlike a semblance in that regard. Perhaps invariably. I suspect some of your magical powers are hiding under your semblance. Limit Breaker seems far too powerful to be merely a semblance at times. If it is, it's an exceptionally powerful one."

"But will I be able to summon fire and lightning without dust? Will I be able to cast destructive spells?"

"I don't know. Will you?" Ozpin asked back. He seemed to be genuinely asking what I thought.

I shook my head minutely after a pause. "Probably not. At least I don't feel that way about it. Maybe destructive spells like my Limit Break attacks, like blade-beam. But probably not casting spells like Cinder was able to without dust. But that hardly matters, I've got dust for that kind of thing when I need it. It's… always been relatively easy for me. Using dust in its raw form, that is, anyways."

"Yes." Ozpin tapped his cane against the ground twice. "While magic is mostly a matter of one's own opinion you have shown little promise in this regard. Much like your transfiguration seems weak. That's no true fault of your own, however," Ozpin clarified for me. "Practice makes perfect but we all have particular talents. It would be wise for you to play into your strengths while bewaring your weaknesses. Follow your semblance, do you really have aura or just magic? If so, what feels truly different from aura and what does not? Does flight? Does your immense strength? Does your speed?"

"They could all blend together, too. I might not even have aura in a traditional sense at all. Maybe my powers mimic it," I realized.

"There is also mind magic. Something you will have no choice but to excel at if you wish to resist Salem's influence over your thoughts. Focus on clearing your mind and maintaining your walls against her. Practice shall make you strong."

"I need to learn more," I murmured from where I sat while Ozpin paced around me. "About dust and about myself."

"A wise conclusion," Ozpin encouraged. "Do go on."

"I need to learn how to eat dust. And my blade-beam. That could be magic. Or it could be aura. It's hard to tell, it could even be both. It always came out differently than Qrow's but is that because we have different aura or because I have magic? It's hard to tell. Maybe even impossible to tell. But that could be the point."

"Now I see you understand."

"And that could be why my sessions with Weiss and Ruby are helping me. Focusing on clearing my thoughts helped me with my transfiguration. They all play into each other."

"Precisely. Now do you have any other questions for me?"

"Yes. It's about my sisters. If they have magic too, aren't we outnumbered?"

"Quality of quantity, Mr Strife," Ozpin murmured. "And we shall have the maidens eventually. Or at least we plan to. Plus there are dear Ms. Rose's eyes. All is not lost. Did they fight you with magic?"

"They fought with things like my semblance so that's a hard maybe."

"Then we shall be wary of them. Is that all?"

I nodded.

"Practice, then. Strengthen your mind, I have confidence in you, Mr. Strife."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Dust eating hurt.

It was a physical process which changed your soul into being more in tune with a particular element or even elements, plural. It brings something out from inside your deepest reaches from this external event. Dust eating reached everywhere inside you and changed that.

It wasn't comfortable.

That was why Hazel's pain numbing semblance worked well with it. Not that being numb to pain was a particularly good thing all the time. Pain was important to give the human mind context. It let you know how much danger you were in. I didn't underestimate it's value. Pain wasn't a weakness and I wasn't about to start criticizing the nervous system in all of its complexity.

And eating dust was dangerous. It could kill you. It could stop your heart. There was a lot of energy that flowed into you when you ate dust. A lot. That's another reason that it hurt. All that power coursing through you. It could burn you up as well as it was changing you.

You see, when you eat dust the answer to question 'what am I' became at least in part that element. 'Who am I?' Eat a little fire dust and the answer becomes partly fire.

I charged my semblance to full in the training room and stretched myself out a bit. I needed to be relaxed before I tried this. I'd read a little about how to manage eating dust on my scroll but nothing could really prepare you for the real thing. And the thing was that the real thing could kill you. Some people only ever tried it once for one reason or another.

I pulled a fire crystal from my pocket and let the blue flames of my semblance lick at my body. Then I took the crystal and shoved it into my skin above the collar.

It slid into my body without resistance. It sort of plopped into me. Then I changed and the energy coursed through my body. The blue flames of my body turned violet, then red. The exact hue of that exact crystal. It didn't help that no two dust crystals were exactly alike. That made this process a little different for each and every crystal.

My aura changed color and texture. The answer to the question changed and I became fire. Me. Not my body or my mind but who I was even beyond that. My soul became fire. I felt hot, really really hot.

It hurt enough that my body bent. I fell to my knees with a gasp. Fire coursed through my veins. My blood felt molten. My heart beat and my head threatened to burn up. Of course that was metaphorically true. But it was also literally threatening to burn me up.

I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. In through the nose and out through the mouth. My vision came back from swimming steadily and though it still hurt I was able to function.

I let the power flow down into my arms and cast it forward with a Limit Break blade-beam through my sword. I used my sword as my magic wand for this little spell and sent it out. The beam wasn't blue this time. It was a crimson colored wreath of flames that coursed forward. It dashed forward and then where it met a target, just a practice dummy, it exploded.

The force of it sucked the air from my lungs. And though I was made of fire I could feel the heat of it. It wasn't uncomfortable like it might otherwise have been because I was made of the fire still. My aura, where it might have usually been golden was still crimson with the power of the dust crystal. I hadn't used all of the energy of the crystal yet.

That was the other thing about eating dust. It lasted as long as it lasted. And it didn't come with a timer either, maybe I'd get a feel for that eventually but for now I had no idea how long it would last. You were committed to the change until it was over. Until it released you. I swung my sword and it was wreathed with flames as I swung it.

I mimed fighting and shadow boxed against no target.

I let out two wide horizontal slashes with my sword covered it flames. I cast a hand forward and fireball followed and splashed against one of the walls. I could feel the flames inside of me. And it wasn't killing me yet so I took that as a good sign. Even though it did hurt. It burned at my insides.

I charged my semblance to full, standing still in the training room until it was activated and flared with crimson light instead of the deep blue. Flames still licked at me but rather than just being light like normal instead it was hot. I was actually on fire. I could just scarcely feel it though. It just felt warm where I real flames roared. I was at the center of an inferno. I was a walking, talking, explosion.

I stepped closer to a dummy and my presence with the flames was enough to start dealing damage to it. I'd be a menace to fight while this was active. I'd be burning up my enemy by just being close. This was how my aura reacted to being partly fire. It was as unique to me as my semblance was.

I wanted to try it with lightning next. And then I'd probably leave it at that. I didn't need to know how my aura reacted to being partly ice or gravity. I didn't need to take the risk. Why bother? When I had fire and lightning and it wasn't like wind would suddenly give me the ability to fly. So why take any more risk than I needed to? I didn't have all the time in the world to train. I needed to pick one or two and get good at those. Or at least good enough to use in a real fight.

I just didn't have the time to practice every single one. Every single combination that was. And with every chance I took came the opportunity for me to kill myself with it. If I mixed fire and lightning, for example, what would happen to me? It could just kill me. And over training. Of all the things in my life to fucking kill me, I refused for it to be over training.

Some things I didn't really need the answer to. Yeah I might try it once at some point in safety but I'd never practice it enough that I'd feel good doing it in a real fight. Not like I would with fire and lightning if I practiced them enough.

I leapt forward and flew. I glid up to a training robot and Cross-Slashed it. My sword melted through the machine as much as I tore into it. My presence began to dissolve it as I hovered before it and sliced.

Plus there was only so much pay off I'd get from adding a little more dust to my body. My return on investment would diminish, and quickly, with more crystals.

Mixing and matching would be fine if my body could take it but that was a big if. So why bother? Just practicing with a couple and getting good with those would serve me better than having a dozen options I was worse at and that might kill me in a real fight. That was the thing about this. It could kill me. Just as much as it could kill my enemies it could get me too. So it was better to practice one kick a hundred times rather than a hundred kicks once.

At least I thought so. I felt the fire wear off and my aura returned to its normal golden hue. It wasn't perfect and there was still traces of the flames inside of me.

I waited until I was confident most of the fire was gone. All bust a few specks. The last bits of it dissolving into me and burning away. Then I took the next crystal into my body. An electric crystal of deep yellow. My body flared from it and I could taste ozone as I slid the crystal into my body.

My aura turned yellow from it's golden color. I could feel the wattage over my tongue and behind my eyes. I swept a normal blade-beam forward and it was a crackling vertical wave of lightning that came out of the tip of my blade.

Then I charged my semblance to full. A lightning storm surrounded me. I flew forward and the motion felt like a jolt. I flew up to a training machine and lighting just poured from my body and wreathed the machine. Tendrils of electricity followed my blade as I cut into it. Tongues of lightning carved trenches in the metal of the robot.

Then I swept my Limit Break blade-beam through and at a training Atlas robot. It became trapped in a miniature lightning storm that harassed it and destroyed it.

I was starting to feel exhauston now from three different Limit Breaks but I felt strength enough for one more. I charged it to full one last time and tried a lightning coursed octa-slash on one of the training robots. I destroyed it completely and slumped to the side. My aura was still coursing with lightning. I waited for the tingling to die down and for my aura to return to normal and I panted hard.

The Limit Breaks took energy from me. They weren't free. Then there was a bit of exertion from the dust itself. To keep myself together and not fall apart due to the energy coursing through me wasn't easy. I figured with more practice I'd be able to manage it in a real fight, though.

For now I wasn't at that point. And the power could still kill me. Pain was there to alert you that something was _wrong_. And the pain I felt when I absorbed dust like this wasn't a miscommunication per se. It could get me.

I leaned against a wall and breathed hard. Still, I thought I'd be able to make one of those two work in a real fight.

I slumped down with my sword leaning against the wall over my head in the broadsword form. I was tired. My body couldn't keep training, even if I wanted to. It had been a while since I'd felt like that. Not since I'd gotten the new sword.

I examined the weapon. Particularly where Pyrrha's weapons and armor had been forged into it.

Pyrrha…

Would we be together now if she hadn't died? I did miss her but I wouldn't want to trade away what I had now. I was a different person than I would have been if she hadn't died. The question wasn't fair. For either of us.

I ran a hand through my hair. I was pretty content with my current setup. I didn't need to ruin it by looking for reasons to do so.

I sighed. I felt a little lighter.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	84. I Got This II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I thought about my ability to fly. I really thought about it and I compared it to Ruby's ability to transform herself into a swirling hovering red mass.

They weren't so different. Not really. But hers was an active ability. It was something she had to focus on in order to accomplish. What I did just sort of happened. I glid over the ground when I fought almost unconsciously. It had been unconscious at first. I didn't know I did it until Ren pointed it out.

How long had I been doing that? Since I killed Eminence and her partner or before even that? It had to be before that had happened. And it was something I once could only do when my semblance was active. But that was the nature of Limit Breaker. It made me better than I was otherwise.

I could still cross-slash and blade-beam without Limit Break active. And there was nothing special about the eight cuts that made up octa-slash. Nothing special other than I was spending my semblance on them.

So what did that mean for my magic?

For one thing it meant my sword was like my magic wand. It was a bit like I'd seen Weiss use Myrtenaster for. A guide for her semblance and power. A focus. I needed my sword for blade-beam. It was in the name, _blade_-beam. My sword was where I drew my power to for that little spell. My very first spell and the one I used the most.

All my attacks that spent Limit were like that. They all used my sword as the main point of origin. Where my power was gathered and used. I could probably use my fists in a pinch if I had to but the Titania edge suited me far better than punching or kicking would or did.

My sword was even at the focus when I flew. I held it behind me or in front of me and I was always ready to wield it when I soared. That was different from Ruby's semblance. Ruby's weapon blurred into the rest of her when she flew. Or when she became a drifting mass of petals it transformed with her. My weapon never did anything like that. Instead it remained the focus of my power.

It glowed and even hummed with energy when I swung it around. It sung with force. It was my magic wand. Crescent Rose didn't do anything like that for Ruby. Instead it was most like Weiss's use of Myrtenaster in that aspect.

When I ate dust that didn't really change. My weapon was still the focus of my power and my blade-beam was still my go to for letting that power out.

I imagined that Ozpin's cane was like that for him and Oscar. It didn't need to be a blade for that to work. The Titania pointed tip probably worked just fine for him. Or at least as well as my edge did.

There were subtle differences between what Limit Breaker did for me and what a typical semblance did. For one thing a semblance typically did one or two things. Super Strength. Lie Detection. And they were usually simple. Even Blake's shadow clones were simple in concept as was Yang's semblance. Mine had a whole bunch of moving parts. It made me stronger. It made me faster. And it gave me a charge to spend. The only other similarly complex semblance was Weiss's and hers was defined by all of it's moving parts and spells.

Her spells were about the only utility as numerous as Limit Breaker. Then there was Ruby's semblance. It also let her change states but it was active and not passive like mine was. They were all active things they had to focus on whereas mine was passive. It was something that just happened to me except for when I charged it. That was the only active part of my semblance except for when I spent the charge.

That was my second spell after blade-beam. Storing and gathering power by charging. I was storing and gathering magic or _something_. Maybe aura, maybe not.

It was this magic or aura that made me stronger and faster. Especially while my semblance was turned on. It was this magical charge that I was able to use for movement or an attack while it was active.

Was it really a semblance then? Or was it pure magic? It was impossible to tell. And that was the point. It was something I did with power. That could just as well be magic as it could be a semblance. I had no idea.

It wasn't quite like Ruby's ability to fly then. What I did was a passive combat oriented thing where what she did was an active change in states. Even my ability to change states was in many ways passive. Sure I could charge it but I also activated it by dealing or taking damage. What did that say about me? What did that mean for who I was as a person?

It meant there was a magic or aura based threshold for me. A place that once I reached physically I crossed over. And the state change… what did that mean for me?

My ability to elevate myself and become more, if only for a little while meant something. I could see traces of magic to it. In how it made me stronger and faster and maybe even a little smarter. But it was hard to measure something like that. Not like how it was easy to measure my speed boost. And it wasn't the kind of smarter that made me better at taking tests. It made my instincts more true. It made my decision making better.

How do you keep track of something like that? You don't. Not really. I wasn't even sure it really happened, myself. It might have just been bias. It made me so much stronger and faster then didn't that just make it look like I was behaving more intelligently? Or did my speed and strength just give me more options, options I might not have otherwise had.

Of everybody else's semblance Ruby's and Weiss's were most like mine. Ruby's for the state change and the speed buffs and Weiss's for the spells. Though it was also a bit like Yang's but barely. We both took damage and that made us stronger but that was the only similarity. She couldn't charge her semblance and spend it on stuff and mine didn't actually set me on fire. The blue wisps of light that covered me was just what my aura looked like when it was over charged with aura or magic while her semblance actually heated things up and made her catch fire.

Mine only did that when I ate fire dust so it didn't really count. It felt superficially similar. The parts that mattered were different. For example her semblance didn't activate by her dealing damage just by taking it.

So Ruby's ability to change her states though and Weiss's ability to cast spells were like me. Weiss's spells were a bit different from mine if you wanted to count things like cross-slash as a spell. She had the ability to manipulate time, I sure as shit didn't have that. Unless my speed boosts were accelerating me through time. That might explain how it made me smarter. It just gave me more time to think. That didn't feel quite right though. She also had little blade-beams. She could cast little points of light out from the tip of Myrtenaster. That was like me.

That just left Ruby's state changed but like I said, that was active for her and passive for me. Maybe my powers just weren't like anybody else's.

That would make sense for a semblance but it also might make sense for magic too. That just left my sisters. My powers were an awful lot like theirs. But that could just because we were related. Weiss's semblance was exactly like her sister's.

But why? The big kicker. Ruby had described Saphron's semblance to me. It made all of her attacks stronger once it was activated. That was an awful lot like mine. Then Violet's made her faster, again like mine. Then Lavender's ability to charge and release attacks was a dead ringer for my powers. But was that magic or was that just aura. Aura was funny enough and hard to define without magic being involved. But it was in play for me. Or else I wouldn't have been able to transfigure the needle into something like a feather.

So where did I draw the line if anywhere? I had no idea, and according to Ozpin that was the point. The line couldn't be drawn. Magic was just aura but even more. So what was the 'even more' for me? Was it all of what I called Limit Breaker? Or was it just parts of it? If so then which parts? The elevated state? Not necessarily, Ruby had that kinda. The spells? Weiss had those too. The speed or strength? Ruby and Yang both had that. So what was really happening?

It was literally impossible to tell from my perspective. And that might well be the point.

My powers weren't anything like what the maidens had so they weren't a good point of comparison. They came from Ozpin, after all. And I came from Salem. Further still, the process which had made me was unique, but that was true for everybody, made in a lab or no.

Nothing jumped out at me and screamed 'I am magic!' but then nothing also said 'I am your semblance and I am not magic.' either.

It was confusing but it was probably not going to be any other way. Especially considering how I was made. Maybe if I was grown normally and had a normal childhood something would be more glaring, but probably not.

With the maidens it was all fire and wind and lightning whereas any magic I had was subtle. It was carefully hidden under my aura. Not that anything I'd seen Cinder do also couldn't be aura. I mean, Pyrrha had been a kind of materiokinetic. There was no reason somebody couldn't be pyrokinetic in a way that imitated what I'd seen Cinder do.

It's just that it was unlikely somebody would be pyrokinetic and electrokinetic and aerokinetic all at once. That was the realm of magic. So was I that same way? What were the odds that somebody's semblance made them stronger and faster and gave them a charge to spend? Unlikely but not impossible.

It seemed that it never reduced the odds of my powers being the result of just aura to zero. No matter what I stacked on top of it. It was just never impossible that my semblance did _this_ and _that_ and _more_. I mean, Ruby's semblance gave her speed and the power to fly apart and I was sure it made her stronger. But she was a child prodigy. She'd won the superpower lottery. While I was just a slouch. I think that was the difference. Beyond being extremely lucky my abilities were unlikely.

It was just unlikely that all my powers were the result of my semblance rather than magic laying under the surface. Carefully hidden but there all the same and augmenting me along the way. Giving me super strength and the power of flight. That was why flight used to be something I could only do while my power was active. Then it grew and expanded into being something more. That was the magic in me.

And I was older than my sisters. I'd probably faced more combat than them. It was possible they just hadn't realized and unlocked more powers yet. And hell, it was possible that they never would. I doubted that, though. Anything I could do they should be able to do. Or close enough.

So where did that leave me?

Well it left me with my ability to fly which stood out a little. Maybe if it remained something I was only able to do while my semblance was active but it hadn't. It had grown and the power had spread out into something more.

There was my strength and speed. I was super strong and fast even without my semblance turned on. That too had grown and spread from being something I only had with my semblance into something I had all the time.

Those things were probably magic, then. Probably. Not one hundred percent but probably.

My ability to charge and spend that on an attack or movement might be all there really is to my semblance. And everything else is magic. That didn't feel quite right either, though. That felt a little like magic too when I was examining things from this perspective. But then did I even have a semblance at all or was it all just magic? For all I knew all my semblance did was make me glow with pretty blue lights. That also didn't seem right, though.

I didn't have the energy manipulation that a maiden like Cinder had but I did have her flight. That was a similarity. Again flight stood out amongst my powers. But it was still something that could be construed as purely combat oriented. It certainly helped me with fighting even if it was just to help me get around. So it didn't really help me differentiate between magic and aura.

Except anybody could do the kind of energy manipulation I'd seen Cinder do. They just needed dust. So if that was really where I wanted to draw the line on, then I better be prepared for Weiss to cross it on the daily with her dust spells. She had power of fire and lightning and ice. She just needed a pinch of dust. Hell, I did too, when I had dust.

So that wasn't a really good line either. It seemed the closer I examined the difference between magic, aura, and dust the harder and harder it became to distinguish any of it. The more everything seemed possible with any single one of them without any of the others.

My super strength was like that. My speed was like that. My charge was like that. But then so was everything Ruby seemed able to do. Would she be able to transfigure the needle too? Would Weiss? It seemed impossible but it really wasn't. Even if they didn't have magic. It could just be another hitherto unknown faucet of their semblances. By that logic was everything I did a result of my semblance, including the needle transformation? It could be. It really could be.

"Cloud? You've been quiet…" Weiss murmured. She stroked my hair while I sat back in her lap. I was exhausted after my bout of training by myself and Weiss had a fantastic lap.

"Just thinking. About magic, you know? And dust."

"Well just so long as nothing is bothering you."

"It is bothering me a little, though. Do you think you would be able to transform the needle?"

"Of course not. My semblance isn't anything like that."

"What if it is and you just don't know. Your semblance let's you do so much. So many spells. What if one of them let's you transfigure the needle and you just don't know. You know? Because why would you have tried?"

"I see… you're still not sure you have magic, then," she interpreted. She was on the ball a little bit.

"I might have magic," I returned. "I just know that it's buried under what we call my semblance if I do have it. But everyone could be like that."

"Not everyone could transform the needle though, Cloud," Weiss murmured. "That's magic."

"Is it? Ozpin said we all have our own talents. Even with magic. I want you to try and transform a needle, Weiss."

"If it'll make you feel better I can give it a shot."

"It would," I affirmed. "How many people do you think Ozpin tried to teach magic to? How many different people truly failed the needle test before he started to give up? How many of them really believed in themselves when they tried? All of that matters. You think it doesn't matter to magic but it _does_."

"I'll give the needle a try," Weiss promised.

"But you have to really believe that you can do it. Or else you for sure won't succeed. How many people really believed that they could do it before Ozma started to give up teaching it?"

"Ozma?" Weiss asked.

"It's what Mothe-Salem called him." I caught myself on my words. "Ozpin that is. Ozpin wasn't his first name. He had reincarnations before."

"I guess that makes sense. And what? You're still trying to figure out what is magic and what isn't? That makes sense too. Your semblance can blend well with magic so it can be confusing, I'm sure."

"Thanks Weiss."

"No problem, Cloud."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	85. Wicked and Cruel I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I watched Weiss focus on a needle, a glyph spun to life beneath it and it soon hovered into the air. But then it did nothing while she sat with an arm outstretched and her eyes closed. It made no move to transform instead it just floated, suspended in the Schnee logo.

Ruby watched with me. Examining the floating needle, she rested with my arms down around her waist and her body pulled close to me.

"What do you think will happen if she does do it? What will it mean?" Ruby asked.

"It'll mean semblances and magic are the same thing. That there's no difference between them," I muttered.

Weiss sighed and released the needle. It _clacked_ back to the desk. "I don't think this will work," she murmured.

"You have to believe," I encouraged her. "Or else it definitely won't."

"I just don't think I have magic the way that you and Ozpin do. I don't think that's how this works."

"Maybe not but we'll never know unless you give it your best try," I returned. "Out of everyone you and your spells have the best chance of being like our magic. Of having this avenue open to you. That's why I asked you and not Ruby or somebody else. Yours and Ruby's powers are most like mine."

"I always thought your powers were like Yang's semblance," Ruby mumbled.

"Only superficially, I feel like, at least," I defended my position. "It also lets me change states. A bit like yours does Ruby."

"I-I guess," she settled. "I still think it's like Yang's a little."

"And really? You think it's like mine?" Weiss asked.

"My spells. They're a bit like yours. The way I spend the charge on things reminds me of your powers," I defended again. They were putting me in a bit of a tight spot.

My scroll buzzed a little and flipped it out of my pocket.

"Strife speaking," I introduced.

"Hey Cloud it's Bisque. We know where Adam is."

"That's fantastic news. So where is he?"

Bisque gave me an address. "You think you'll be able to beat him this time?" He asked.

"For sure. He got lucky last time. I'm going to end him."

"Well best of luck to you. It would certainly be one fewer problem for me to worry about. Think of it as a load off both of our minds."

"Keep me in the know on my other names, too," I requested. "These are dangerous people."

"You got it. We certainly owe you back here."

"Good of you to remember that."

"We'll see you around, Cloud."

"You too, Bisque."

I hung up the scroll.

"Good call?" Weiss asked.

"I got a hit on Taurus. I'm going to go kill him."

"We're coming too," Ruby said it like an order. She demanded and I didn't argue with her.

"We'd better grab Yang and Blake. Blake especially will want in on this if it's Adam related," Weiss murmured. "I know Yang also wants to avenge her arm. We had better let the General know too."

"Times ticking," I gestured at an invisible watch on my wrist.

"You're not going solo anymore. That means working with us and the General," Weiss countered. She crossed her arms with some heat.

"Guys…" Ruby mumbled. That seemed to settle it. We both shut up mid argument.

I shook my head. "Fine. Whatever. Grab the rest of your team and have them meet me in the garage by my bike and Yang's. We'll roll up on them together."

I grabbed my sword harness and put it on my back. Ruby and Weiss both dashed out of the room to go find Blake and Yang and get their own gear ready.

I checked my pockets and counted my dust crystals. I wasn't sure I'd be eating any of them today but I'd like the extra firepower that they gave me.

Once my gear was set I briskly walked to the academy garage and set about waiting impatiently for team RWBY to join me by the entrance.

When they finally did it was Blake leading with, "you know where Adam is? And the information is good?"

"As good as I can reasonable expect it to be. Got it from these faunus union workers," I told her.

"I've been itching for some payback." Yang rubbed her prosthesis with her real arm. "He won't stand a chance against all of us. Blake and I will take Bumblebee. The rest of you will get on… what is your bike's name, Cloud?"

"Doesn't have one," I replied in gruff monotone.

"Boo," she booed me.

"It was supposed to be temporary anyways," I muttered, crossing my arms as I did. "Why bother with something like that?"

"Whatever. Just send me the address," Yang followed up. I pulled out my scroll and did as she told me to do.

I sat down on my bike and gestured to Ruby and Weiss to join me. Ruby hoped on just behind me this time and put her arms around my waist. She snuggled in tight, rubbing her cheeks into my back adorably. I reached around and pat her hair.

Gods I loved her. She literally had my back.

Weiss plopped down behind her and wrapped herself up in Ruby to keep secure.

"Just so long as this isn't like last time we rode this thing," Weiss muttered.

"Dodging my sisters in the middle of a highway wasn't fun for you?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes at me in reply. "Believe it or not but no. Fighting while riding passenger at sixty kilometers an hour doesn't make me feel comfortable." The sass with this one… I could learn to live with it. Maybe it could even grow on me.

"What if I let you drive next time?" I asked teasingly.

"Still no," she bit back. "Not actually the part of that which had been grinding up my gears."

I pulled my foot up off the ground and kicked back the stand. Then together we took off on the bike into the mid-afternoon sun.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I felt… something as we approached the target destination. It was at once familiar and disparate to me. I'd… I'd felt it before somewhere like in a half baked dream. It made my hairs rise and it set my teeth on edge.

"Taurus is here?" Weiss asked. It was a run down warehouse on the edge of Mantle. It reminded me a little of place Dyne had made his final stand at but it was a different location. It was barely in the city.

Outside of the place were parked three familiar motorbikes. The same ones that had run me down on the road. I knew then what it was I was feeling. My sisters. They were here with Adam. That could only be bad news for me.

I kicked the stand out and slung my legs off the bike.

The building was tall with grey brick and red crossbeams to help hold it up. Some fucking offense meant but it looked like the kind of place my sisters and Adam Taurus would have a meeting.

"My sisters are here," I told the others low and slow. Yang's bike came stuttering up next time mine and she shut it off. Blake slid off the back, her weapon already drawn and at the ready.

"You sure?" Blake asked.

"Those are their bikes from when they rode us down," Ruby pointed. "What would your sisters want with Adam Taurus though?"

"Evil begets evil? I don't know," I ran a frustrated hand through my hair.

"Bet you're glad you brought all of us now. Or do you think you can take them all on by yourself?" Weiss asked.

I couldn't. Taurus would have been plenty for me to deal with without my sisters being involved in the fight. Saphron, Lavender, and Violet were really strong. They weren't bad batches like I was. They had some real power behind them and they worked well as a team. They were dangerous.

But why? What did my sisters want with Taurus. Or perhaps just as importantly what did Taurus have to gain by dealing with Salem's agents. Was he already involved with Salem? Maybe.

"Don't…" I exhaled hard. "Don't kill my sisters if you can help it. I want to try and save them. It's not their fault that they're what my Mother wants them to be."

"Cloud… we'll do our best," Ruby promised. It was good enough.

"You three deal with the girls," Blake mumbled. "Yang and I will take Adam."

"Together?" Yang asked Blake. She loaded her shot gauntlets with a _ca-chink_.

"Together," Blake agreed.

"Very well." Weiss nodded along with Blake's plan.

"How do we wanna assault this place?" I asked. "Or do we just want to wait for them to come out and greet us?"

"Is that a good idea?" Weiss asked.

"It worked when I killed Tyrian. I just waited," I told her. "Then we duked it out in the streets. Lots of room to move that way. I need the space, too. I hate getting corralled in."

"Better to move in, I think," Blake disagreed. She shifted her weapon out of it's plain gun mode, a blade in either hand.

I drew my longsword from my back rather than the broadsword. I left the shield there too, preferring to grip my weapon with both hands by the long handle.

I strode forward past my sisters' bikes. I pressed on the double doors to the place and one of them creaked open. I gestured and the others came through under my outstretched arm.

We crept along up a catwalk steps into the rafters of the warehouse. I could hear my sisters talking, Saphron's voice, but I couldn't make the words out. It was followed by Adam's gruff and low tone. Then it went back to my sister's voice. There was this sort of box like office room built into the catwalk above the lower floor of the warehouse. Their voices were coming from inside that little room.

"-Maybe I don't care what she wants. Salem has never been good for the faunus. We might just be better off without her at all."

"A bad attitude to have," I heard Saphron counter. "The White Fang needs us. You'll never be able to muscle a kingdom like Atlas around without help from my Mother."

"The old White Fang managed it. They didn't have the help of your mommy."

"You're not the old White Fang. Let's be honest you're a shadow of your former selves. You can't even run the unions in this town. You need our help."

Adam snorted. "I'm tired of humans telling me what to do."

"You'll find that I'm barely human. I'm…" Saphron trailed off.

"Do you feel that?" Lavender asked.

"Big brother…" Violet's voice came through. "Is he here? Or just nearby?"

"He is here," Saphron hissed. Her voice came out low. "He must be."

"We've been made out," I muttered to my friends. We'd been gaining up on the doors to the little office room. The door to it burst open and revealed us, just standing there and them on the other side gathering their weapons.

"You can feel each other?" Blake asked, her voice low.

Inside was a small place with a little bedroll and some bottles of water. This was where Adam had been sleeping. He must have had few allies in the city.

Violet drew her double blade and Saphron raised her gun. They were all three of them in these long coats that nearly looked like capes. Saphron was in a deep red, Violet was in purple, and Lavender was in a deep blue.

"Big brother. So nice of you to join us," Saphron murmured.

"Have you given any thought to the reunion?" Violet asked.

"You!" Adam snarled. "And Blake?! My love…"

"Don't be shy, Jaune. Introduce your friends to your family," Lavender grinned up at me. She pulled her gauntlet free and readied it. It pistoned slightly.

I activated my semblance with a thought and hovered the rest of the way over the catwalk. I sliced at the hanging supports for the catwalk as I approached. Saphron did this long side-flip that held her in the air for way too long and met me in the middle with a short dagger.

Then we, and my other sisters, fell down as the damage I did to the catwalk meant that it couldn't take our weight. Adam flew like a bullet out of the room with his katana in a wide slash. He met an 'x' formed by the two blades of Gambol Shroud. He went straight for her, Blake that is, his hatred for me was apparently vastly second to whatever he felt for her. I watched Blake get shoved back on the catwalk with Yang while Ruby and Weiss jumped down to join me and my sisters.

I could hear Blake and Adam and Yang fighting above me and cutting up the catwalk while I hovered down to the first floor where my sisters had crashed to.

"Rude, Jaune." Saphron clicked her tongue at me. She shot at me twice. The first bullet sort of held her in mid-air and she fell and shot the second one.

I deflected them off my weapon rather than start being shot this early.

"Yeah, play nice, big brother," Lavender followed her up. She thrust her gauntlet up at my face and I shoved it to the side.

Then I blocked a third cut from Violet before my girlfriends joined me on the floor of the warehouse. "Who are they Jaune? Are you dating one of them, I wonder. Mother won't like that. She's awfully strict about dating, but of course you should know that."

"You don't have to do what she says. You don't have to obey her." I grunted and pushed Violet back.

"You know that's not true, Jaune," Lavender giggled. "We have to do what she says. We're a part of her. She's a part of us."

"Undying," Violet whispered.

"You can fight back!" I howled. I did a side-flip to back up a bit but I found Saphron to be all over me with a short stab of her dagger as she jumped. She slashed at me and I hopped back.

"How much does that cost you? I wonder? Day by day you become a little weaker while she holds all the cards," Saphron purred. She grinned and she slashed at me in this long drawn out backflip that I couldn't quite manage to block. "Your suffering must be terrible, Jaune."

"Oh it's not so bad," I grunted. I met her weapon at the long range of my own. She twisted and pulled her gun on me and shot three times right in my face. I flinched away from the bullets and she cut me with two quick jabs.

"And I'm not Jaune Arc. Not anymore," I finished. I warded her off with my weapon.

"Do you really think changing your name will matter at all to her? Besides, you're an Arc. Like the rest of us. You can't run from that. No escaping fate."

"No! She can be beaten. She's not invincible," I protested. "I'll save you from this, Saphron. Even if it kills me."

"'Save,'" she mocked as Ruby and Weiss engaged Violet and Lavender. "Save yourself if you truly can. Leave me out of it. I want mother to be around. I love her."

I slashed into her aura and though it bit deep she took it with an strange twist of blue and red flames that once more left her hovering in the air oddly.

It was like… it was like she was storing the attack for later. Taking it where she wanted so she could dish it back at another point.

"She's twisted your mind!" I shouted. Our weapons clashed. Then again she blocked to the side as I tried to cut at her again. Then she blocked in a roof like motion as I brought my weapon down on her. "What you feel for her is just her manipulations. You have to fight back!"

"No, Jaune. My emotions about it are the only things that are true. Nothing else presses so much."

"You're living a half life," I shot back. "You're a slave."

"And you're not?" She wondered right back at me.

I slashed at her twice horizontally and I hovered right into her range. I kicked at her twice and she blocked both. Then I drew back and and brought my sword down diagonally on her.

"I'm more free than you are," I spat. "I'm nobody's puppet. Never again."

"Say that to her face," Saphron whispered. "I bet you won't. I bet you _can't_. Give in, Jaune. It feels _so_ good." Our blades struck again. She reversed her grip on her knife and stabbed it back into my face. I back-flipped in place and brought my weapon around and down on her. She caught it on her aura once again and a red and blue flashed around her as something coalesced behind her and in her space. Her semblance must be charged. Just like mine was.

"Where would it end? I can help you, Saphron! I can show you how to fight back." I swung forward in a wide slash. She blocked it, then she moved in tandem with the specter behind her. It clashed with long claws right behind her knife's motion. I struggled to meet it, even with my semblance active. She was very strong in this state.

I back-flipped and flicked my blade up behind me in a vertical fashion. It caught her in the chest and knocked her off her feet. She grunted with it. Then she side-flipped at me drawing her blade around her and the specter imitated her and slashed with her. It drilled into my aura.

Then she landed and stabbed forward three times now that she was inside my guard. The three attacks were strong enough to lift me off my feet and send me crashing to the ground.

"You've never even met her face to face. How would you know what you can and can't do for me? You have _no_ idea what she's really like. You have _no_ idea what she can really do to us."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	86. Ninja Interlude I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Blake PoV)

Adam came at Yang and I across the cat walk like he flew out of a canon. He slashed a wide swing which tore into the cables that held it up as well as the metal grating which made up the catwalk itself.

"You've come here to destroy me, haven't you, love?" He pressed.

I grit my teeth and met his slash with my weapons crossed. I held off the long katana which sent sparks up and harsh vibrations down my arm.

I flicked away into a clone up above him and Yang stepped into the space I formerly occupied with a haymaker. He blocked it but he had no room to step back given the damage Cloud had done to the platform behind him. I descended back down on him with a wild slash and landed behind him.

"You've got to be stopped Adam. You're way too dangerous. I have to stop you."

He blocked two slashes from me and then twisted around in time to deflect Yang's prothesis to the side.

"I do remember you," he told Yang. "This time I will kill you."

Yang shot at him with her gauntlet and he leaned to the side but he still caught a handful of pellets that made his body twist to the left. He slashed at her, taking a long step forward to drive Yang back with his alarming strength.

Then he spun around and met one of my blades, then the other. With his back turned to her, Yang punched him hard in the back and he leaned against the rail of the catwalk like he might fall.

He snorted at us. He was penned in. He would need to make space if he wanted to beat us. He jumped off the catwalk and backflipped off the wall of warehouse then came at me in a wide slash. I vanished in a shadow clone and left him cutting at air.

He cut through the grate of the catwalk more as he paced up on Yang with a sidestep. Yang warily stepped back and for a moment it looked like the two were dancing. Adam leveled his scabbard at Yang and fired a blast of pellets at Yang's head. Yang ducked and tried to step in with a punch but Adam used his range to block her to the side and followed it with a riposte that Yang deflected off her prosthesis, shielding her head with it.

"Can't you see I've done everything I did for you, Blake?" He grunted.

I descended back on him with three quick slashes. He deflected them, but he was shedding aura with the effort of keeping up with us. Then I drew back and fired at him twice with my gun. He grunted into the bullets, unable to truly block with Yang on top of him.

"I never wanted any of this. Be honest. You did it all for yourself. You wanted the throne of the White Fang," I fired back. I shot at him a couple times too from behind Yang. He sheathed his weapon and front-flipped at us. He drew it again in a dashing cut that was aimed at both of our heads. "And look where that got you. Sleeping alone in a warehouse at the edge of Mantle."

"This is the end of the line," Yang muttered in agreement. Her fist met his sword and they warred for a moment before he paced a half step back.

"I won't end today," he said gruffly. "Today will mark a new beginning for me after I've killed you and taken Blake back."

He cut twice horizontally with his long range and kept Yang at bay. She struggled to get in on him. Once she was in she could work him over but it was getting through the zone his sword provided that was the problem.

"You'll never have her back! Don't you get it?!" Yang shouted in his face.

Yang jumped back and I left a clone behind where she stood. It turned into fire and washed over Adam. He flinched back but he hardly had the room to escape the flames. He stuttered back in and rammed me with his shoulder, knocking me to the deck of the catwalk. He brought his blade down on me but I raised mine and covered myself from his swing downwards.

Yang stepped in over me and punched him in the jaw. He was sent reeling back into the little space he had reclaimed near the edge of the walkway. Yang chased him and hit him in the gut. Then she uppercutted him with her robotic hand. He sliced her back and she blocked by holding her arms upwards and bent at the elbow.

He then descended on her with some slashes and tried to open her up but she stood firm for the most part. It was hard for Yang to block without taking some hits on her aura but Adam would have to do more than chip away at her.

"We'll just see about that," Adam muttered.

I flipped back to my feet and stepped forward and unleashed a beam of purple light that rode down the catwalk and forced him to block.

"She's right. We're over Adam. You're over."

"You can't win her back. You crossed the line," Yang growled.

"I will have her again," Adam disagreed. "My love, be mine."

"Never again. I'm sorry I couldn't save you from yourself, Adam," I returned.

I twirled upon him and cut at him with both of my blades. He twisted Wilt around and held Blush over his face to block my attacks.

"Save me? I don't need saved. I have my duty to fulfill," he bit out.

There was a time when I had admired his strength. His dedication to keep going. I admired his passion to our cause and how unflinchingly he looked at the world. Now I wish that he would have flinched, for a sign that he was just a person doing what he thought was right rather than a monster. It was the sort of little sign that Ruby and Weiss got from Cloud when he stumbled. A sign that he was struggling and that he would hesitate.

Adam never gave me that. About anything. He just pressed on like he didn't do horrible things. He went forward like he hadn't killed people. Cloud at least seemed on edge from the destruction he caused. A point in his favor perhaps. A difference between him and Adam.

Then Adam said he did it all for me and I had to know that he was lying. Even to himself. I never wanted this for him. I never wanted this from him. I'd rather that he flinched.

He slashed Yang away and pressed his advantage on her now that she was opened up but I flicked to place beside her and cut at him. Then I shot him twice in the chest.

He let out a little roar at being interrupted and came at me. His blade singing through the air. He pinned me back against the rail of the catwalk and swung. I cried out as he bit deep into my aura. Purple flared from where he cut me in a field.

"You're becoming bothersome, love," he rumbled.

"I'll always be in your way, Adam," I said steadily.

He slashed at me twice more and brought Blush to bear. He fired and the blast knocked me off my feet again. It slammed me into the rail and down to the metal grate. Yang roared and stepped over me into his space and he slashed at her too before he sent a shot whizzing into the aura around her head. She shook it off and came at him still. She swung with her right arm and Adam blocked it with a twist of Wilt. Then she buried her fist in his gut with her left arm.

He grunted again. We were winning. We were chipping away at him.

I looked down through the grate and saw Ruby and Weiss fighting off two of Cloud's sisters. Ruby turned into petals and dodged around her target and Weiss had a black glyph spinning to life beside her. I couldn't be sure how they were doing. Hopefully they were matching our success and we'd walk away from all this the victor.

I remembered fighting Cloud's sister. She was good. And they worked well together as a team. It could be dangerous for them down there but I had to hope that they could maintain the pace and win.

I rebounded to my fight and shot at Adam while he tried to keep Yang off of him.

Adam ripped into Yang's aura, ignoring my shots that pounded into his own. He cut her twice across the stomach then once diagonally from shoulder to hip. Then he kicked her in the chest and pushed her back before he fired right into her stomach with Blush.

Yang failed for a moment on the rail before I tossed her my ribbon and pulled her back on. We charged him with my ribbon in hand and clotheslined him on the catwalk.

We tried to wrap him up in it but he put his hand on the ground and cartwheeled free, this time moving forward so that we were cornered against the destroyed part of the catwalk. He had the space he wanted now.

He sheathed his weapon and side-flipped. He jumped off the wall and back to the catwalk and came at us in an enormous slash that cut into both of our aura and knocked me back a step.

"You can't beat me, love," he whispered. Like a knife on the bones of my spine. "I'll kill her this time. No running away from me."

"We will beat you!" I shouted back right in his face. I put my weapon together in a fluid motion and brought it down on his body. He blocked with Blush and riposted with Wilt and cut me across the stomach.

"Get off of her!" Yang slammed her shoulder into him and sent him sprawling across the catwalk. He just rolled away from us and back to his feet. We were pushing him close to a staircase upwards now.

He shuffled back and put one foot at the edge of the stairs. If we started to force him down them we would have the advantage and he'd be on the back foot. He would either fight us at an enormous loss or be forced to turn and run.

He snorted at the two of us. He knew it too. It wasn't in his nature to run if he could help it. I knew that about him.

He slashed forward at Yang and this time he bit deep into her prosthetic where she tried to block. She didn't cry out in pain, it wasn't attached to her body like that, but she did let out a little grunt at the loss.

Maybe Cloud should have been the one to engage Adam. Cloud's strength was terrible. It might be the only thing that could match him. Yang was now wounded and she was coming up short of taking him down. We both were. At this rate he'd be able to escape or kill her. Maybe both.

I hadn't realized Yang had gotten so low on aura. I wasn't doing well myself but I thought she had more in her tank. Aura was a finicky thing. You didn't have the same amount day to day. Besides Yang had been blocking most of his attacks on her aura. That was the nature of her style against a swordsman like Adam.

I'd need to make a play if we wanted Adam to die here and now and not live to fight another day.

Yang's prosthetic went limp by her side. Adam had struck a critical system in it. I flipped down the catwalk to where Cloud was mid-fight with this hovering specter and a girl inside of it. I lashed Gambol Shroud to the rafters and swung down and I clashed with her from behind and sent her tumbling into a shelf.

It raked at me to confess that I needed Cloud's help. It should have been me to take down Adam but I couldn't match him alone and with Yang hurt.

"Go help Yang," I told him. "Please trade with me. Stop Adam. You're the only one who can match him one on one."

Cloud hesitated. Then he nodded. "Beware her semblance. And… and don't kill her."

I nodded. He flew away up to the catwalk on a pocket of air. "Sit this one out, Yang. I'll cover for you," I heard him say.

His sister picked herself up out of the shelving I'd knocked her into from behind.

"That was family business," she snarled at me.

"Your family business involves everyone," I returned. "Literally everyone everywhere."

"You'll regret getting between us. I have no qualms about killing you," she added. I watched the specter around her fade with a closing wing around both her and it and I saw her wince. If it was anything like Cloud's power, her next use of it was a long ways away.

She flipped a dagger into her hands, rotating it so she held it reverse with a casual ease and she pointed her gun down at me. We started by shooting each other. Her with her pistol and me with mine.

Then we clashed with my scabbard against her knife. She pushed against me but I had a little range on her.

She did this three-sixty front-flip away from me and landed neatly like an acrobat. Then she rushed me and she did a sort of baseball slide with her leg extended to trip me up. I bounced off one of the shelves and came back down on her with my sword. Then I swept my scabbard into her gut.

She bent over from the force of it, a flare of red and blue aura spreading out from the attack. Then I shot her three times.

My gun clicked empty and I had to reload with a back-flip. She approached me with another somersaulting jump. And she swept the knife at me in a move that caught my aura at the stomach. She didn't hit nearly as hard as Adam did. At least not with her semblance inactive.

She shot at me once, then she did an arcing flip that carried her into the rafters with her shooting down on me in a bullet storm all the while. It caught me off balance and as she landed she swiped the knife at me and shoved me into one of the shelving units.

She jumped, lashing out with two kicks into my gut that sent me reeling. She was formidable. As you might expect from one of Cloud's sisters. But she wasn't unbelievably strong like he was. She didn't share the sort of raw power that let him one-shot my aura to near zero or fifty percent.

She dashed forward to follow up her assault with two more kicks but I blocked both on my shins and I engaged her with my sword and my scabbard. I forced her to block twice in rapid succession then I flowed my weapon together and brought it down on her body. It flung her back into a shelving unit.

I heard two shouts above us and saw Adam slam into one of the walls of the warehouse and slide down it until he crumpled in a heap. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Cloud was winning if he hadn't won already.

Cloud landed and grabbed Adam by his shirt and picked him up. He slammed him into the wall hard enough to shake the whole building.

I turned back to my opponent and found her running away. She was making a break for the exit and covering her sisters with a storm of bullets as they did similarly. I could hardly respond. My aura was almost at empty. I watched Weiss and Ruby try to get in their way but the sisters were nimble and they worked well together in concert all three of them.

They flipped over one another as they made their exit and all I could do was watch. The girl I'd been fighting flicked her knife from by her side and it slid deep into my aura and from there into my stomach. A crackling of purple wasn't enough to halt the weapon.

"Blake!" Weiss shouted. She moved to cover me. A glyph spiraling to life over my body while Ruby took potshots at the retreating girls. They slid out of the double doors of the warehouse and I heard engines start but my vision was getting hazy.

Yang came up to us. Her arm still dangling uselessly by her side. "Blake!" She hissed urgently. "Stay with us. Don't go to sleep."

Sleep sounded so good, though. I blinked my eyes wearily from where I lay on the ground.

"Did we get him? Did we get Adam?" I asked.

Cloud's voice came in, he said something I didn't make out followed by, "he's gone."

Then I sort of slipped under before I could ask anything else.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	87. Wicked and Cruel II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Saphron's specter rested in place around her with a great blue wing made of ethereal blue light. She jumped and kicked at me and the ghost moved behind her and lashed out with two of it's red legs in perfect, floating time with Saphron's attack.

"I know that she's willing to torture me and I'm her fucking son…" I murmured. "I can only imagine what she's done to you."

I tried to block but I was knocked off course. My thinner longsword was hard to keep in place against her, even with Limit Breaker active. My back pressed against one of the shelving units that lined the warehouse.

"It's not so bad if you never give her a reason to punish you," Saphron countered.

She landed and did a horizontally as well as vertically rotating flip that ended with her knife whipping out at me. The monster's claws lashed out at me patiently from within her space and bit deep into my aura. Its claws came down as her blade lifted up and they sort of clapped together through the same space. It slammed me into the tall shelf and knocked it and me over in a loud _crash._

I picked myself up out of the metal shelving with a low groan. "And have you given her a reason to punish you?" I asked.

That clapping attack had rocked me. She shuffle stepped towards me, then she lashed out with two round kicks, one leg then the other and the specter kicked out in synchronization with her and it knocked me back on my ass as well as flung me a few dozen feet away into the next shelving unit which wobbled unsteadily.

"Only once or twice. I've never felt such agony," she whispered. "But I've also never felt such pleasure except in serving her."

Then she started shooting at me. Rapid fire came with the high caliber rounds. I managed to get up and shield myself from some of them but she dashed forward into my guard and grabbed me by the straps on my armor. She pulled me forwards at the same time she stuck her foot out to trip me and I cartwheeled into the ground.

"It doesn't have to be like that," I told her as I got back to my feet.

I was getting my ass kicked like I hadn't since the first time with Tyrian. She was nimble and I didn't get the sense that her semblance made her faster. Instead it just made her unbelievably stronger. Maybe by an order of magnitude, maybe even more.

The being was between nine and twelve feet tall. It had long red demonic limbs and serrated claws on each hand. There was one wing at least as tall as it was colored blue on its back. It had a small face proportionally with glowing white eyes. Over a deep nose and no mouth.

I groaned as I picked myself up. I couldn't even fight back in full because I was trying to spare her life.

"Come on, Jaune," she said with a note of laughter on her lips. "You better mean it if you want to beat me."

She jumped and the being behind her flapped it's gigantic blue wing in time with her jump. I caught her out of the air with an enormous swing of my longsword. She was rocked backwards and she bounced off the ground and rolled into a shelving unit of her own. It rocked slightly and timbered into a second one that it just leaned against.

The eleven foot tall creature that floated behind her hadn't been touched and it stood at the ready waiting for her to get back up and join it and I on our feet.

The apparition was able to touch me but I was unable to hurt it. My blade had passed right through it.

At a guess I asked, "how much charge you got left on that thing?"

She got to her feet and glared at me.

"I can't hurt it can I? But that's not how it works. It works by hurting you to get at it. You take damage to bring it out but you also lose it by taking damage, is that right? Dear sister?"

She just jumped and snapped her fingers at me. A tiny wisp of purple and red flames flicked out from her fingers. It didn't look like something I wanted to be hit by. It looked like some sort of spell, to be completely honest.

"Don't be like that, big brother. He's just out to play." She gestured at the specter behind her.

I hovered towards her over the shelf that fell with one leg outstretched and the other bent at the knee. I vaulted into the air at the last minute and cast my blade forward from the left, then I rotated to the right in a three-sixty to bring my blade down on her twice.

"Tell him to go home," I said to her face. "He's not wanted here."

"Oh posh. Maybe not for you but I like his company."

She blocked the first slash with her knife but the second caught her and bit deep into her aura. A great silvery barrier emanated from her body when my sword met her second skin. It pulsed outwards and she shouted. The being behind her snapped it's fingers forward and I was flung back by the counter attack. The counter spell, really. I back-flipped to land securely and before I hit the ground I cast a tight blade-beam at her that made me hover in place as I threw it at her.

She snapped her fingers and sent her own little fizzy fire spell out and they met between us and sort of cancelled out. Her spell fell apart but it caused my tight beam of energy to dissolve in a spiraling fashion into the air.

Then she pulled her gun on me and opened fire. I supernaturally deflected the bullets then I charged at her again and she raced towards me over the toppled shelving unit.

She had to be fleet of foot through the shelving where I could just hover so I was faster than her by a great deal. We met and I slashed at her twice. She was forced to block the long range my shorter sword still provided. Her short knife flickered forward and I just flew backwards then back in with a wild slash from over my head downwards. I reversed the momentum of the double edged sword and danced forward into her. She blocked each with a subtle twist of her wrist and she snapped her fingers at me again and the fizzy ball of fire caught me in the chest.

It did lasting burning damage to my aura where it connected. Purple and red flames licked at my glowing blue body. It hurt as it burned me. Burns, if you've never really been burned, hurt. A lot.

I didn't let it hold me down. I did a front-flip and cut at her and drove her back into the shelving unit behind her. Flicking her off her feet and back into the wall of metal.

She landed harshly but was racing back towards me after only a moment. She did a spiraling side-flip at me, her knife extended to slice at me and the claws of the monster behind her imitated her and slashed with her. I blocked this time and the monster stopped where her knife did with it's long claws.

It could be stopped. It could be beaten. I just had to bash on my little sister a little to make it happen. That… that broke my heart a little. She turned in the air in a nimble fashion and landed on the strips of metal that made up the fallen shelving. She balanced easily. She jumped and shot at me. She hovered in place for the first two bullets then she landed in a slide for the next two. Her coat whipped through the air behind her in bright crimson like a long cape, almost, with two little flares.

I deflected both volleys off my Titania edge. And took a running-gliding slash at her. I swung at her, wielding the sword with one hand. Then I took it in both hands once more and hacked at her.

She blocked the first and flipped out of the way of the second. The monster still loomed behind her. She jumped and kicked at me twice. The monster followed her perfectly and lashed out with her. I could barely block the attack and it sent vibrations down my arm.

She landed and did this sort of sprinting double kick that caught me and flung me back off of my feet. From there she jumped and spiraled in the air and let bullets rain down on my prone form. I held my sword between us but it wasn't as wide as the broadsword and I didn't have my shield out so I only managed to block some of the bullets.

Still I managed to hover back to my feet. I spun in a circle, slicing around my body with my blade and forcing her to hop back a step. She just jumped and shot me again. Then she had to reload when her gun clicked empty and she did so quickly, using the hand that held the knife to discard her magazine and slam a new one into place.

Blake came swinging down from above and collided with my little sister's back. She slammed into one of the shelving units and fell down.

"Go help Yang. Please trade with me. Stop Adam. You're the only one who can match him one on one."

I was pretty sure I was the only one who could match my eldest sister and her magic too. Her semblance gave her unimaginable power behind each attack. Power I could only barely overcome.

I nodded anyways. "Beware her semblance. And… and don't kill her."

I flew up to the catwalk and descended upon it and saw where Yang was standing there with her prosthetic hanging with circuitry bitten into.

Adam had her in a corner. I met his slash just before it could bite into Yang's body.

"Sit this one out, Yang. I'll cover for you," I said.

"You," he rumbled at me.

"We meet again," I agreed.

"I destroyed you last time. Sent you packing with your tail between your legs," he grunted.

"This won't go down like last time. I'm not going to hand you the power you need to win again. You had better work for that shit," I spat back.

Yang, low on aura, backed up to the edge of the destroyed catwalk. She was holding her prosthetic with her free hand where it was broken. Then she just jumped down to the first story and out of the way of Adam's and my fight.

I gripped my longsword in both hands. It was a touch longer than Adam's blade. It was thicker too, from the hilt to the tip. I flicked the blade out towards him and he shielded under his own. I rocked him a little with my strength. He riposted and I blocked with a twist of my wrist. I tried to catch his blade on my wider guard and rip it out of his hands. Then I tried to thrust the guard up into his face. He was taller than me and tried to leverage his weapon down on me but I resisted.

I hovered back out of the way of his slash back out over open air then I came back with a wide swing that started low and ended high. It tore up the metal grating and forced Adam back.

He swung at me in a wide horizontal slash that I blocked vertically and he tried to twist around me and thrust the narrow blade into my chest. It sort of worked. He cut me part of the way across the torso and I kicked at him back.

I chased him with another kick and brought my blade up in a quick jab of my sword, one that would have been impossible with the broadsword. I followed it up with a three-sixty that dragged my sword from high to low and forced him to shelter behind his weapon.

He slashed at me and fire burned from his weapon. The red of his sword must have been dust infused. A touch like that of Raven Branwen's sword. He sheathed it and took it out again lightning fast and delivered two diagonally oriented cuts that reverberated down my arm. He sheathed once more and when I sliced at him vertically he blocked with a combination of the scabbard and the sheathed sword.

He pulled the scabbard free and fired at me with it three times. I hovered around him and sliced into him from above where I flew. I kneed at his face while I floated above him. It didn't connect but it made him flinch. Then I brought my blade down on his body hard while he stumbled back.

He couldn't keep up with my mobility that my ability to fly provided. He tried to back-flip off of one of the walls and come back to the catwalk but I sliced through the walk and forced his footing to be bad as he came back. Hovering, I sliced at him twice horizontally. He blocked the first and the second sliced across his head and made him fall back. I just floated above him while the catwalk began to fall. He leapt up at me. I brought my blade down with both hands and slammed him back into the crooked catwalk. He couldn't get in on me. I just had too much of an advantage while floating over him. I flipped down onto the catwalk and sliced through it as I glid up at him. He jumped and I caught him by the collar and slammed him back down into the diagonally standing catwalk.

I crushed a dust crystal and sent a bolt of lightning ripping at him that he partially managed to deflect off his blade. The rest of the energy crackled over his body. Then I swooped in and grabbed him. I cut at his body while I held him and threw him hard back down into the walk. I strode forward and continued to cut up the catwalk, sending grates of cut metal descending down to the first floor and cornering him against the stairs. He took one step down the stairs. He tried to cut at me but his footing was bad where I didn't even have to worry about that. A bit like my fight against Saphron over the shelving.

I deflected easily off my longsword, holding it with one hand. I slammed my pommel towards his face and kicked out at him while I flew. I slid my sword into the shield on my back and drew the broadsword. Then I started to rip up the catwalk for real.

He jumped and cut at me in mid-air but I blocked and took a mighty swung that slammed him back first into the catwalk. He rolled to his feet all the way back to the steps. He sheathed his blade and slashed at me with crimson energy. It was weaker than when he had absorbed my energy and I cut through it and let the energy splash harmlessly around me. It was a desperate gamble against me. Something he only tried at the end of his rope.

I hovered to the side of the catwalk and brought my sword down on his head in three diagonal cuts. I rotated in the air, slashing to the right then swinging to the left twice in a three-sixty. Then I front-flipped at him and kicked him in the chest. He bounced off the wall next to me and he back-flipped at me. He tried to cut at me but my blade was enormously longer. I caught him in an octa-slash as he over extended in his desperation with my incredible range.

He slammed hard into the wall of the place and the final cut of the octa-slash sliced him across his chest badly. He was flung back into the warehouse. I descended on him and picked him up with one hand and slammed him back into the wall. The force rattled the entire warehouse. Blood welled from the corner of his mouth as he tried to stand up.

I stabbed my blade forward and thrust it into his chest. I held him there at the long edge of my weapon and he struggled for a second. His hand came up and gripped the edge of Crocea Mors and he tried to pull himself off of it. Blood poured from his hand as he tried to twist his way off of the weapon.

"Don't push your luck," I told him. "This is it for you."

He cursed at me but he choked on his blood.

"Blake!" Weiss shouted.

I pulled my weapon back and let him fall to the ground. Then I went back to where my friends were gathering.

Yang rushed up to Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. Her arm still hung uselessly by her side. "Blake!" She shouted. "Stay with us. Don't go to sleep."

Blake was injured, she had a knife in her stomach.

I hovered over to them.

"Did we get him? Did we get Adam," Blake asked from the ground.

"He's dead. He's gone," I answered.

Blake sort of slipped under into unconsciousness her eyes fluttering closed.

"We need to get her out of here," Ruby murmured.

"What happened with my sisters?" I asked.

"They slipped away," Weiss responded.

"Damn it." I bent down and picked Blake up bridal style. "We better get her to a hospital."

"Thank you, Cloud." Yang's arm still hung uselessly downwards. I was sure she wanted to be carrying Blake but she really couldn't in that state.

"No problem," I murmured. I hovered along to the bikes outside and laid her across bumblebee.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	88. Changes I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Are you sure you won't come visit Blake in the hospital?" Ruby asked me.

"Nah. I'll leave up to your team. Might visit next time, sound fair?"

"I-um I guess," Ruby returned. "I really don't think she'd be bothered by it."

"But can you say that she'd be pleased by it?" I asked rhetorically.

"Well…" she hesitated. Her silver eyes flicked away from mine.

"_Ahp_, you had to think about it. Trust me. I'll just leave it to you girls for now. Next time. Mayhaps."

"What are you going to do around here?" Ruby asked. "If you're not coming with us, that is."

"I'm going to be with Oscar and Ozpin. Helping Winter Schnee get a handle on her new powers," I returned easily. "Don't worry. I won't get up to any trouble."

"Trouble has a way of finding you, Cloud." Ruby smiled at me good naturedly.

I laughed a little in a low chuckle. "Well if it finds me this time it won't be my fault."

"You don't get along with Winter very well," Weiss cut in.

"She actually doesn't get along with me. I do just fine with her."

"You escalate things with her," Weiss pointed out. "You don't ever try and get things to calm down. You try and rile her up. Stop it."

"Not my fault. She still wants to tango despite how bad it went for her the first time," I returned.

"Just try and not drive her crazy. She's the only real part of my family I get along with." I could sort of get that. I wanted to be on good terms with some of my family. Like my sisters. I wanted to be on good terms with them.

But Saphron… she wanted to fight me. She didn't want to try and resist Mother. She liked her servitude. That was unsettling. Was that all I had waiting for me? And my sisters had met my Mother face to face. The things Mother had done to me she'd done with half a world between us. I hadn't actually met her face to face like my sisters had.

It made me shudder. I had no idea what she could actually do to me in person. She'd been able to dominate my mind like it was nothing through that tentacled Grimm.

"I'll do what I can," I promised half-heartedly. "Give Blake my regards."

They walked out of my little Atlas Academy room with little waves goodbye. They were adorable, with Weiss pulling Ruby along by the hand.

I got up and put my sword on my back. I strode out of the tiny Academy place of stay and made my way to the training room. I found Winter inside already with Oscar leaning on his cane.

"Cloud, good of you to join us," Oscar said in a voice that made it unclear whether it was him or Ozpin talking. I stared at him long and hard for a moment. I desperately tried to decipher who I was talking to before eventually I gave up. It was probably impossible to tell at some points by the very nature of the way that they were becoming one.

I was merging in an odd way with my Mother but hey...At least I wasn't Oscar. He was really becoming one with the enormous alien mind. I could at a minimum divide myself between where I began and where my Mother ended. Oscar didn't have that. He just had a steady blurring of lines as he conjoined with the old wizard.

"It's no problem. Just not sure what light I can shed on the subject that you don't already know." I crossed my arms and stared at Oscar. I still wasn't sure who I was addressing.

"You've fought Cinder the most. You have more insights into her powers than anyone else. Some seasons tend to rhyme with one another. This fall with that other particular spring."

I supposed that made a certain amount of sense.

"Didn't you fight her too?" I asked.

"Yes, when she destroyed Ozpin's body, but her powers were only just settling in then. I fear that most of what she used was her semblance not her maiden powers."

"You know what her semblance is?" I wondered. That would be important information to have for those of us who were looking to kill her.

Like me.

"Pyrokinesis I suspect. But it's only a suspicion." He tapped his cane twice against the ground. His Hazel eyes glowing. "It blends rather well into the maiden powers, I suppose."

"What other powers does Cinder Fall possess?" Winter asked. She cut in for the first time. And it was the first time I'd seen her since she became the maiden. She didn't look or feel any different to my senses. She looked the same as ever, tall and in white.

Oscar stood in silence and seemed content for me to take the lead so I shrugged and answered, "she's got control over wind and lightning like you might with dust. And then she can fly, too. Hard to be sure which comes from which maiden part though. She could fly and control wind before she became spring. The lightning seemed new but its impossible to tell."

"I understand. You believe my own powers will turn out similarly to Cinder's," Winter noted.

"Precisely," Oscar nodded. "We feel that seasons that take shape around the same time frame are a great deal like the others. This isn't always the case, however. Magic can take all forms. Cloud's powers are nothing like that of any maiden from recent memory."

"But I may have this power over the elements as well and flight," Winter interpreted. "Just like dust, then."

"Yes, why don't you give it a try now? Whatever feels natural when you reach for the maiden powers," Oscar said.

Winter breathed in deeply and shut her eyes. When she opened them again there was a silvery flare to the sides of her eyes. The same color as her aura had been.

She stretched out a hand…

But nothing happened. Sort of anticlimactic.

"I am unsure where to start. I can feel my new powers but can't quite understand them."

"Why don't you try modifying your semblance. Casting a spell that normally requires dust to execute but just with the powers in hand and your semblance," I suggested. "It's pretty much what I do with my own magic."

Winter gave me an even look at my genuine helpfulness but she nodded. She extended a hand and an enormous glyph radiated to life behind her easily enough. Then lightning flared from it. It wasn't strong or very well directed. But there was a crackle of sparks across it that was vectorless.

Winter dropped panting. She'd been holding her breath as she did it.

"Oh and don't forget to breathe," I snarked. She managed a weak glare back up at me where I stood with my arms crossed.

"You know, _Cloud_," she emphasized. "I hardly like you being around my little sister."

"Yeah well I hardly like being alive. We can't all get what we want," I bit back. "Why don't you try it again? Breathing this time, that's important."

She nodded and got back to her feet. She breathed deeply this attempt and her eyes flared with that magical sign of the maidens.

A glyph hovered to life above us and ice came raining down through it. A jagged shard bounced off my aura and I hopped back a step.

"Sorry. I didn't quite manage what I wanted," she snarked back at me.

"Did you want to impale me? Because any time you want to go, sister. Let's go, whenever you're ready."

"Now, now," Ozpin chided. "Ms. Schnee just lost control for a moment. I'm sure it was unintentional."

"See, unintentional," Winter agreed.

"Yeah of course, never would have you pegged for childish," I muttered.

"We are all often not as others expect." She smiled cheerfully.

"Why don't we give flight a shot?" Ozpin asked.

"I am unsure how to begin with that," Winter said. Which was fair enough. You give somebody a bunch of new powers and you couldn't suddenly expect them to know how to use them. Especially with something as vague as the maiden's powers which took different shapes naturally.

"I could just drop you from the roof and see what happens," I cut in. "Experiment."

"Any serious suggestions would be appreciated," she returned smoothly.

"Maybe I was serious," I murmured. "Come find out."

"Well Mr. Strife, how is it that you fly?" Ozpin asked. "It has been some time for me."

"Not really sure. It's sort of subconscious. I just did it while my semblance was active. Then I sort of just imagine moving around once I get up to speed to control it."

"Unhelpful," Winter decided. I felt like she wasn't being super fair on that one.

"Cinder can do it so you better be able to figure it out. Can't let her outperform you, she'll be gunning for you next," I shot. "Try to imagine yourself rising on a pocket of air. That helps me."

"What makes you think she'll come for me?"

"You were the obvious choice for Ironwood to pick as the new maiden. It's an open secret how close the two of you work. I was able to figure it out and there's no reason she won't be able to. You have gotta assume she knows that you're the new maiden or close to it."

She nodded, then she closed her eyes in focus and breathed hard. The wind might have picked up a little in the airtight room. A breeze bustling through but she didn't start to rise up off the ground or anything.

"We will keep at this. You've been more than helpful, Mr. Strife."

"That's exactly what I shoot for."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Blake's going to be okay. She was especially happy with the news that Adam is dead," Weiss informed me later that night around the dinner table.

"Dead as a doorknob," I agreed. "It's just a shame that my sisters slipped away."

"What would you even have done with them had you gotten them?" Weiss asked. "They seemed awfully determined to be on Salem's side."

"It's not their fault. They're brainwashed," I defended them partially.

My sisters were a touchy subject. They were a shadow of what I could be. What I would otherwise have been. If Mother had her wicked way. It was hard to hate that. It was in a sense like hating my potential self. There but for a flip of a coin went I. I could still end up like them. I could still become a monster.

Mother's influence on me was still there. It was always pressing. And that was without having ever seen her face to face. The sort of mind magic she could bring to bear against me must be unreal in person. How was I ever going to kill her? Or at least cut her fucking head off and bring her as close to death as she could be brought. I didn't have a clue.

"But how are you going to change that?" Yang wondered. "It's one thing if somebody wants to fight it like you do but they just want to give in."

"I… I don't know. But I can't exactly abandon them or kill them. It wasn't their fault that this happened to them and besides they're still my… still my family," I murmured. "You know what I mean? I can't leave them to that."

"But if they don't want to be saved then there's nothing we can do for them, Cloud." Yang pointed her fork at me. "You're different but your sisters seem to want it."

"I can't just give up on them," I protested. "I have… I have so many memories of time spent with them. They matter to me."

I could remember so much. So much time spent with them. It was all fake but it still made me feel something. Weiss said my feelings were valid it was hard to agree when there was so much fake pressure from Salem.

"But those memories aren't real. They're an illusion," Blake cut in. "The only times you've met them they attacked you."

"Maybe…" I muttered. "It seemed mostly playful though. Like they weren't trying to kill me."

"Playful murder?" Yang asked. "Are you serious or…?"

"Cloud you can't save people who don't want to be saved." Weiss patted my hand. "You need to come up with a real plan to deal with them."

"I suppose we'll have to fight them," I said. "I suppose… that I'll have to… I'll have to kill them, if they can't be saved they can only be put down. It's what I would want if I fell to my Mother."

"Do you really mean that, Cloud?" Ruby asked. "That you would want to… you know…"

"Die?" I asked. "Probably, yeah. Its better than being a puppet, you know?"

"I do," Weiss whispered. "It won't come to that, we'll keep you from falling to her."

"Yeah. I suppose."

"Cloud. We will keep you safe from her. You have to believe in that," Ruby murmured.

"I'm starting to, a little."

And I was. Things had been better with Weiss's and Ruby's help. I'd heard fewer whisperings from my Mother. I'd had fewer command auditory hallucinations. I had a wall erected in my mind between my Mother and I so that less of her spilled over into me. She was like ink in water, spreading out and getting into every gap. Under currents carried her influence every which way only it was inside of me.

It was hard to imagine I'd ever be totally free of her. Her tendrils reached deeply into my mind. I couldn't help but imagine it was the same for my sisters. Only they met her face to face and experienced the kind of magic she could hurt us with for real. It must have been terrible. It must have been beautiful. I imagined giving in for a moment. What it would feel like.

My Mother's influence was unbelievable. It was always present in me but there was a sort of stopping point I'd managed to create that halted her from having total rule over me.

It would feel like nothing else to give into her wishes and do what she wanted. I wasn't sure that sex would be able to compare. And Saphron had made it sound so good. She made it seem so sweet. The way her voice had purred when she's talked about submitting. I got that. I really did. I just didn't want it for me. It would me losing everything that I had built up here.

It would mean sacrificing all my friendships and relationships and more. It would cost me my soul. I just couldn't give in even though every day Mother inflicted some new horror onto me. It was agony but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'd have to immolate all my wishes and desires and dreams to become something else. Something with a new and different and terrible purpose. I'd be a weapon in her hands and nothing more.

I liked having the 'more.' it was what made me feel. It made me feel human. I wasn't sure what I'd be without it. So I couldn't give in. But my sisters, they had already slipped under.

They'd bowed their heads under the surface and they drank from those dark waters deeply. They became something less than human. Saphron had said so herself. It was that which separated me from them and the Grimm too. The Grimm was a part of me but I didn't have to acknowledge it. I didn't have to let it rule me.

Maybe it was nothing and just maybe that was everything. Maybe it was all I needed to resist. I wasn't sure. I couldn't be sure until I ran into her again. It was a trial by fire and nothing else. There was no middle ground.

It meant that I couldn't afford any mistakes when I was next in her presence. It meant I could just collapse and become nothing again like I had before.

I just couldn't tell until next I saw her.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	89. Winter Deva I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Winter POV)

Training with the new powers was harsh. It was an inconcrete thing. Where one might normally run laps to build up speed or stamina or lift weights to grow stronger the powers of the maiden were transcendental.

The training still took a great deal from you, as though you had been running laps or lifting weights, however. It left me exhausted and it left me weaker than normal. I had a long way to go until I reached the power of a fully realized maiden like Fria had been.

As far as I was aware even Cinder Fall had yet to master her powers. Though she had an additional helping of them being both fall and spring.

My heels clicked down a street nearby to the academy leading up to where my small apartment was. It was a cozy thing with spartan furnishings. It was so unlike the manor I had grown up in. The military lifestyle suited me after the years I spent as a child under my father.

To my father everything had to be extravagant. He needed it that way. I was different. I thrived off of the bare minimum.

There was the sound of footsteps behind me on the dark street. I turned around. There was a woman standing there. She was nearly as tall as I was in a dark crimson dress. She had an eye patch over half her face with dark hair and a glowing ember eye. I recognized her at once.

This was Cinder Fall.

I pulled my weapon on her and she let out a short terse laugh. She summoned her own weapons to her hands. Swords made of glass, one in each palm. Just like her profile described.

I split my scimitar so I, too, had a weapon in each hand.

"So quick to arms? I just have a couple questions for you," her voice rang out melodic.

She hurled a mote of fire at me and I slipped behind a corner, into an alley that lined the street. The explosion rocked the side of the building I pressed my back against.

"This is Special Operative Winter Schnee I nee-" my scroll was blown out of my hands.

"None of that." Cinder strode up on me with a bow in her hands now. She shot my phone out of my hands with an explosive arrow. It rocked my world a little and I was sent tumbling down the alley and away from the bigger street.

She inhaled deeply through her nose like she was smelling the conflagration. Fire roared up from behind her and she slammed me into a wall. She held me there with her weapons in sword formation once again.

I was a hair taller than her but she was incredibly strong. I pressed forward with my weapons, swinging one in each hand and she deftly blocked it with narrow twists of her wrists.

Her eye glowed with the power of a maiden burning away at the corners.

She summoned lightning. It _crackled _down onto us both and she whipped her weapons at me and it struck me high. I summoned a glyph behind me and darted forward on the magic in a landing attack.

She met my strike to the side and lashed out with a kick that caught me in the gut.

"Now about my questions…" she trailed as she prowled towards me like a tigress. "Where is the winter maiden, Winter Schnee? Is it you now? I wonder?"

I summoned a glyph at my back and launched myself again towards her. I slashed twice at her low, high then I brought forth dust from my weapon and swept fire at her. She ducked underneath the fire and came at me with both her weapons in diagonal fierce cuts.

I managed to block them all then I jumped off the wall and back-flipped away from her and hoped to gain some space.

She kept on top of me. Prowling forward she sliced at me with her weapons. I blocked one off to the side and deflected the other away from my face before I slashed at her stomach and caught her by the red aura there. She stuttered back a step.

"Well aren't you more than the General's plaything," she laughed at me.

I reared back and stabbed my weapon into the ground and brought forth another glyph. Snow white Grimm masked birds flew forward at Cinder Fall and buffeted her. She slashed through them and I let up after a few got through and harried her. I summoned a great Beowulf from nothing and it lumbered towards Cinder.

Cinder examined it contemptuously before she cut her way through it with a wave of fire.

She twirled her weapon around her and fire emanated forth. It spun around her like a dancer's ribbon before she struck out with it and I only just managed to flip out of the way of the blaze.

I came down on her with both my weapons and I cut at her diagonally then horizontally then diagonally with both of them. She only met my strikes while backing up steps to give a little ground in the tight alley. It was a touch claustrophobic for my tastes and it was only getting hotter as Cinder reved things up.

She flew at me, leaving a blaze behind her on the ground as she did. She came at me with narrow slices and sharp thrusts. Then she hovered in a tight circle around me and kicked me in the back of the head.

I fell to the ground and looked up at her. Some of my maiden powers must have flared up because she whispered. "It is you."

There was no use hidding it. There hadn't been at any rate. This was a win or lose fight for me. I couldn't afford to keep more cards in reserve. I had already nearly exhausted my maiden powers, though, with my day of training with them. I was already bone tired and nearly at my limit. Only the rush of adrenaline kept me going at the moment.

I slashed towards her and summoned a wall of ice along the sides of the alley with dust. Spires poked out towards her from the sheet of frigid material.

It hardly slowed her down even having been caught up in it. She attacked me with more fire and the alleyway was filled with hot steam that burned my eyes and made me cough.

There was a flare of lightning as she approached me and she swung her weapon towards me and there was a _zap _that caught me in the center of my mass.

It tossed me down the alleyway and sent me rolling. I picked myself back up to my feet in time to meet a wild slash of glass sword. I held it at bay with my stiletto in my left hand and took a swipe at her with the scimitar in my right. It only met air as she ducked at followed it with a swing of her own weapon in her right hand.

I met it with my stiletto again. Then she took a slash at me with her free weapon. I was forced to block with my scimitar.

She flipped in place, bringing both weapons down on me and I blocked them with an 'x' of my own tools.

She kicked me in the stomach and made to summon more fire. It swirled around her in an inferno as she stepped towards me. I felt my aura burning off of me from the heat. She swept both her weapons at me and the fire followed.

No where to run or duck to in the alley I was forced to shield myself with glyph as best as I could. It shattered like glass and the heat raced over me.

I summoned a glyph behind me and darted over her, then back over her with another swipe. Then another in a blitz of attacks that made me shed aura like rain but it was worth it for the three clear slashes I landed on her own aura.

I made to do it again, after all if a strategy is working, then why change it? I launched myself towards her and made for another swing but she got bodily in my way and I ended up tackling her down the alley and back out into the open street.

I slashed my blade at her and wave of lightning emanated out of it. It raced over her body and made her shudder from the force of it. It left her smoking. I saw my opportunity and slashed deeply into her aura with first the stiletto then the scimitar.

I tore out deep red chunks of energy from her body and made her scream in rage. Cinder summoned a dagger into one hand and brought it down on my head. I only narrowly dodged to the side.

She summoned her swords again and came sweeping at me with three fast blows that spun her in a circle. I blocked the first two but the last caught me across the stomach.

One little moment stood out to me as I was pushed back. One simple thing. I was probably going to lose. And if I did… when I did… the power of the winter maiden could not go to Cinder Fall.

I took my weapons and I cut at her in a rhythmic pattern. Low high low. High high low.

Cinder blocked them all a sly smile on her face. Her grin only widened as she counter attacked with raw fire in a flare that sent me scuttling back across the street.

My own control over the maiden's powers were so much less refined and they were worn down after a day of using them hard for the first time.

She swung her weapons at me and there was a _zap _of lightning that crackled down her arms from her body and further into her weapons then out at me.

It shocked me and I felt my body convulse and falter. My aura hardly defending me as low as it was. It hurt a great deal.

She flew at me with flames behind her and I barely raised my weapons in time to match just one of hers. She shoved me all the way back into a brick wall. My head cracked back against it harshly and then she went and tried to sweep one of my legs out from under me. Only fleet footwork kept me up right.

Then I was forced to block her other free glass sword with my smaller stiletto. I pushed back against her for a moment before she faded back and caused me to fall forward. She tripped me and hooked the hilt of her weapon behind my neck and threw me to the asphalt. She kicked me in the side while I was down and I rolled with it to get back to my feet.

I pushed both palms down into the asphalt and picked myself up. She was on me with a wild swing of her glass sword. I deflected it and riposted with a thrust of my scimitar.

She parried it easily enough. I stuttered back a step and summoned a glyph and using dust I sent a hail of ice shards her way. She summoned fire hot enough to melt them and turn them to steam. I kept the hail going a moment longer but quickly ran out of usable dust long before I made progress through her wall of fire.

I was losing. I was losing badly and I wasn't sure I could turn this around at all. It had been a bit like fighting Cloud Strife who had bodied me as well. This was just the edge that magic provided a competent user.

I was slowing down and I would probably lose long before help arrived to bail me out.

This was grim. None of my training had prepared me for the moments before I was about to die. How could it? I'm not proud of it but I panicked a little. All my analysis was screaming at me that these were my last seconds of life and if it wasn't these seconds it was going to be the next ones.

She summoned more fire and I dived to the side to avoid being immolated. I tried to clear my mind and rationalize but that was just leading me down a dead end road. I was about to die. I was about to die. I was going to lose and I was going to die for it. Cinder was just more dangerous than I was. Even at my best I wasn't sure I would be able to defeat her and I wasn't coming into this at my best. In fact I was pretty sure that even at my best I would be defeated by her.

I had a duty though. I had a job to do. I was still going to protect the maiden powers. Cinder wouldn't take a third one today. But who to choose? My brain was stunningly calm in its analysis of candidates compared to the panic I felt regarding my own imminent death.

There was Penny of course. Penny would do well. She was a wonderful person, perhaps even a friend. But it wasn't enough. My thoughts kept being drawn back to Cinder as she flew at me again and cut at me with her weapons. I stepped back blocking both.

I needed something more to anchor myself as I died. Least I be reminded of my attacker and the powers go to Cinder. Something more than a possible friend. There was really only one candidate at the end of the day.

My last thoughts would be of my little sister. It was the right choice. I knew it in my heart. It was strong enough as well. Strong enough that my thoughts never left Weiss as I stared Cinder in the eye and blocked her lightning fast slashes.

I fell back some more and her left arm just extended in Grimm blackness and chased me with her sword. I blocked her unearthly strength three times in a half second. Then she hurled another note of fire at me and dived across the rough pavement.

Still my thoughts were on my baby sister. Would she be up to the task at hand? Maybe. I prayed so. She would have all the support that I did to succeed. But was I just dooming her to die from the same woman that was attacking me now? Maybe so as well.

But she was committed and strong. She had a powerful team of friends to support her. She could get through this. She had as good a chance as anyone else I could bare to name as my successor.

"You Atlas types are all the same. Hoarding powers. You think it won't leave the rest of us hungry." Cinder prattled as she advanced on me again with three berserker cuts. I only blocked the last, the rest cut deep into my aura. "And I refuse to starve."

She pressed forward into me.

"Give it to me," she demanded. I wouldn't. My thoughts never left my baby sister. It had a certain resolve to it that I'd never managed to place at any other point in my life. It had no true point of comparison. It was a singular focus.

I fought back with a fury. I swung at her in a triage of blows that she neatly blocked with an unconcerned smile on her face. The total bitch.

I fought back like I was about to die. I swung for the fences and for Cinder Fall's head. She kicked me back a half step and chased with a swipe at my arm that knocked me and cut me open. The wound made me cry out as it tore my flesh.

I had nothing left. I was completely empty. This was it. This was the moment. She swiped my weapons to the side hard enough that I could hardly hold on to them.

She bent backwards and thrust forward. Then she stabbed me through the chest. I choked on air and I could feel my left lung filling with blood where she stabbed me. I could feel her sword part my ribs.

She followed it with another slash across my throat. I dropped my weapons and reached for my neck vainly. Blood flowed over the wound and I couldn't breath through the slice in my esophagus. I choked helpless on the gore. The pain was distant compared to my inability to breath and my sudden lightheadedness.

I fell to my knees still choking.

"Give it to me," she purred again. The last words I'd ever hear.

I didn't. I thought of my little Weiss.

Then I slipped my mortal coil.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	90. Changes II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Something is wrong with Weiss," Ruby informed me in a rushed voice by my door.

"What do you mean? Like she's sick?" I asked, getting up.

"Not really. Just… come see." Ruby hurried off back to Team RWBY's room. I followed her out the door I'd been standing in and across the hall.

Weiss was sitting on her bed with her hands over her eyes. When she looked up at out entrance there was a flare of white power to either side of her blue eyes.

"You're a maiden!" I exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" Blake asked. She had never seen the power, I realized.

"Is that what's happening to me?" Weiss wondered. "I feel so strange. I feel warm and cold at the same time."

"Everybody cool it," Yang cut in. "We don't know for sure that she's a maiden. Which maiden would she even be?"

"She must be winter, by elimination," I said. "Something must have happened to her sister."

"Something happened to my sister? You mean she's…"

"She must be dead and you must have been the last person in her thoughts," Blake murmured.

"But how? I just saw Winter yesterday," I wondered. "We were training her new powers just the other day."

"The enemy must have got to her. The Arc sisters or Cinder," Yang said.

"My sister is gone?" Weiss asked. "No, no. This can't be. There must be another explanation."

"The odds of it being summer by chance or the other two seem low," Blake seemed to agree with me. "You must be winter now."

Weiss choked back a sob and curled in on herself. "No. Not Winter."

"What do we do?" Yang asked.

"We have to let the General and Ozpin know," Blake spoke softly. "They'll have some idea of what to do next."

Weiss's eyes still glowed in little white flares. She was crying and it wasn't pretty. Her cheeks flushed bright red compared to her normal pale complexion. Winter was the only family she got on well with. It must be hard on her to find out this way. So brutally. So directly. There was really no way around it. It was so cut and dry.

"I sent Oscar a message," Ruby whispered. "He'll know soon."

"I'll send one to the General, then," Blake mumbled. She pulled out her scroll and tapped away on it for a moment or two. Then I just ended up standing in silence and listening to Weiss cry quietly.

Crying girls. Cryings girls, crying girls, crying girls. I was never the best at cheering Ruby up when she was feeling down. Luckily Ruby had a better idea of what to do than I did.

She walked over to Weiss and put an arm around her and kissed her forehead. Then she went to rubbing Weiss's back and arms with her own wrapped over her.

"Weiss…" she whispered again. "It'll be okay. You'll see."

I didn't know what to do with myself. I just leaned by the door and watched my girlfriend comfort the other one. I wasn't good at this. Never had been but I had to try something, didn't I?

"Weiss," I breathed. "You're strong enough to get through this. Your sister chose you with confidence in your abilities."

She just cried a little harder. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered to say anything. I probably only made things worse for her. I was really bad at being a source of reliable comfort but this wasn't about me. This was about Weiss and what she needed.

I could hear footsteps from the long hallway behind me. I didn't turn around to look and see Oscar standing next to me.

His eyes glowed faintly as he took in the sight before him. Weiss crying on her bed with Ruby wrapped up in her. Blake and Yang hovering concerned to the side.

"Is it true?" He asked. "Has winter's powers passed to Weiss?"

"It looked that way to me," I told him. "Her eyes had the glow of a maiden to them."

"We need security measures. Winter should have been safe," Ozpin murmured. "This shouldn't have happened. We're lucky Cinder Fall didn't get her hands on the power of a third maiden. I can only imagine how powerful she would be then."

"So that's that then. Winter's… gone?" Blake asked.

"No, no, no, not her. It can't be," Weiss moaned.

"You and her must have been close for you to be in her final thoughts. And she kept the power out of the hands of our enemies. You should be proud of her. She did well," Ozpin spoke quietly. "But you must face reality. She is gone now. And you are the new winter maiden."

Weiss just seemed to ball up on herself even more.

"I think that's probably about enough," I murmured to Ozpin. It seemed neither of us were any good with upset ladies. Or at least neither of us were getting through to Weiss very well. Sometimes shit just goes bad. "Talk to us about these security measures."

"Well I would need to talk to - James!" Ozpin said as the General appeared in the doorway.

"Winter Schnee never checked in this morning," the General muttered. He rubbed the bridge of his nose hard. "Her body was found near her apartment this morning. The wounds matched that of curved swords. I feared the worst for the maiden's powers when I found out. I'm glad that they're still on our side but Winter is a heavy loss. I… I will miss her."

"We were just about to talk about the security of the new winter maiden," Ozpin tapped his cane against the ground twice.

"That's probably for the best. Better to keep our eyes on the money. Winter would want it that way. She wouldn't want us to be distracted by her death. You're confined to the academy for the time being. And when you do go out you'll take an armed escort with you," Ironwood crossed his arms behind his back and spoke loudly in Weiss's direction. "Your team can do the trick or even Penny when your team isn't available. Winter was attacked when she was alone. We'll make sure that you are not. Even Cloud should manage for it."

"So I'm to be watched during all hours," Weiss bit out. Grumbling from the fetal position.

"Not any more than we can help. It's my understanding that you didn't go out without your team anyways. We'll just keep that up. And Cloud can be part of your retinue. We'll have to keep you safe and you'll start training your maiden powers immediately. Today, if you think you can," Ironwood finished.

"I'm… I'm not sure. I feel so tired," Weiss murmured.

"Winter was the same way when she inherited the powers," Ironwood went on. "Rest and take your time recovering. We'll keep you safe."

"How?" Weiss demanded. "Cinder Fall has been invincible. The only person who's come close to contending with her has been Cloud and he's nearly unstoppable while his semblance is active."

"And I'm not sure I can beat her," I muttered. "She sort of whaled on me before I got Mercury. I'm really not sure I can stand up to her if she comes for Weiss. Not alone at least."

"You'll have Penny again," Ironwood seemed to be pleading with me even though I was totally on his side. "You can match her. You have to."

"We need more. From you, General. Robots and sentries," I said, crossing my arms.

"I don't want to be watched all the time, I enjoy my privacy," Weiss protested.

"This is about your life, just until I kill Cinder. Or she kills me. Either way I won't have to worry about you anymore," I explained.

"I don't need to be watched all the time."

"Your sister said the same thing to me," Ironwood cut in. "I thought she would be safe here in town, just back and forth to her apartment. Take the escort. You'll have privacy in your room, same as now."

"Fine," Weiss decided. "Just robots, though. Not real people."

"Very well. It's a good decision," Ozpin decreed. "Odds are Cinder Fall will make another attempt at getting her hands on the power. We should be ready for her when she does."

"You're not thinking about using Weiss as bait, are you," I pressed.

"No, nothing of the sort. But she is a target. When the power didn't transfer to Winter's killer the list of people Winter was personally close to was short. It takes a great deal for the thoughts of someone not to be on their attacker as they are killed. At least in my personal experience." He would know. He'd died a lot. "What Winter managed couldn't have been easy and took great courage. But it takes more than a close friendship to make something like this work. We should expect that they know specialist Schnee was close to the person the power transferred to. Penny Polendina perhaps. Or Ms. Schnee. Both make ideal candidates," Ozpin argued.

"They could think the power transferred to someone random. That Winter's last thoughts weren't about anybody," Yang postulated.

"I suspect that's a possibility but unlikely. They will act as though they know where the power is when they make their next move," Ozpin disagreed. "They will act on the intelligence that they have."

"I'll order your new guards to your room. They'll follow your every order," Ironwood excused himself. "I'm… I'm sorry."

Weiss just put her face back down in her arms.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I respected the fuck out of Weiss. She could take a punch with the best of them and come out the other side clean. She could get knocked down and get back up again so fast. If one of my sisters had died it might put me down for a bit even though they tried to kill me. I had so many fake memories of being with them that they meant something to me. Winter and Weiss weren't like that. Winter actually meant something to Weiss unlike what my sisters were to me.

It would put me down was the point but Weiss was back on her feet and fighting within the day. She was focusing on using her brand new powers. She pushed herself through her exhaustion and was summoning icicles from her glyphs. Using the power of the maiden in conjunction with her semblance to accomplish a great effect.

She was so strong. To be up and fighting already. To be training again immediately. It was fantastic to watch. She'd wiped her tears and been back at it. She made me look so weak. So fragile. So breakable.

Here I was encumbered by the things that might be. Salem might dominate my mind. Maybe I couldn't save my sisters. I may be to weak to fight Cinder. I gave the depressing thoughts so much power over me. Weiss's sister was actually dead. For real, for real gone. Was she moping about it? No. Did she want to use drugs to get over her grief? No. Was she overwhelmed by what happened to her the way I still was? No.

I admired that. It was unbelievably attractive. It was so endearing the way she was already training with Ozpin and I the same way her sister had just days before.

She didn't let it really get to her at all. I reached out to her and took her hand in mine. It was soft but calloused from wielding Myrtenaster. There was a supple strength to her fingers. I rubbed a little circle into her hand before I released her.

"I…I admire your strength," I told her. "What you're doing isn't easy."

"I don't know. The power seems to come to me naturally," she deflected.

"Not that. I mean what happened to your sister. You're so strong I can't believe it. I'm watching you do it and I still can't believe my eyes. If something happened to my sister's I'd be in shreds."

"Even with how they attacked you?" She had to wonder. It was a valid point. One that I had already considered.

"Yeah. Even with how they attacked me. And here you are still holding up."

"Truth is that I'm not. I'm throwing myself into this to distract myself, I don't really want to think about how she's gone," Weiss whispered. "She was all the family I really had. My father, brother, and mother don't count. Well maybe my mother but not like Winter did."

"You're not resorting to hardcore drugs," I started to list. She hit me with the back of her hand softly in the dim training room light. "You're not killing damn near indiscriminately. You're just dealing with it. And with your complete new responsibilities."

"It's what I have to do. I don't have time to grieve. It's my new responsibility. Cinder will come for me and I have to be ready for her when she does."

"We'll be ready for her. I'll die before I let her hurt you," I promised.

"That's not super reassuring. I'd rather you lived," she shot back at me. Cutting deep. Sometimes I really would rather that I didn't. Live that is. But that was just me being weak. I could hardly confess that to her after her losses and the strength she was showing. I had to be at least as strong as she was. Or at least act like it for the things that mattered.

"I just meant that I'd do my best to protect you," I told her. I took both of her hands in both of mine and she looked up at me with big ice blue eyes.

I bent down and I kissed her forehead while I gave her fingers a squeeze. She sighed slightly and leaned into me.

"Keep yourself safe too, Cloud. We need you too. Don't go into a fight you can't win."

"I won't. Cinder is a bit of a unique case. Maybe I can take her. Maybe not. She really was trouncing me until I got my hands on Black. The lighting and fire and wind were overwhelming. Plus her glass weapons and dust sewn clothing. It's a lot. She's a bit of a handful. I have no choice but to fight her the next time we meet. I'm the only one who really can. Oscar isn't strong enough yet."

"Not very optimistic of you," she murmured. "I can tell you're trying but you really are quite the pessimist."

"She scares me. I'm afraid of what she might do to you to get her hands on the power."

"I'll be fine. I have you and Penny to protect me and it's just until I master the power of the maiden," she reassured me. Figures she'd be the one to reassure me even though by all rights I should be trying to comfort her. Cute Cloud. Real cute.

"That's going to take years. To really master the power. That's a long time for her to come and get you."

"I have faith that you'll shield me from her. You're stronger than any of us. You fought her twice before and matched her both times. With a little bit of help you can defeat her and then…" she trailed off but I just stood and waited. "And then you'll be the most dangerous person on the planet. Not so bad for a 'failure.'"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Well second most dangerous, maybe. There's Mother and my Father who could be making more of us. Based off that little black book he had no plans of actually stopping making more. And Ozpin."

"You're splitting hairs. You should be proud of how powerful you've become. You have worked hard."

"Maybe. Or maybe I was born with it. Or not born. I didn't have a birth. I was made like this. You earned where you are now. You fought to overcome your own family and get to stand here. It's amazing. I try and emulate you every day. You overcame the lot in life you by all accounts were born into. I admire that. It gives me hope that I don't have to be what my family wants me to."

"You're making me blush," she whispered. Her cheeks were indeed slightly rosy.

"I mean it. You're such a queen. And you're rock-solid."

"Watch it," she warned me.

I did. "And you're taking to this maiden stuff like a fish to water. You're doing better than your sister did."

"It's not so hard. It's a bit like using my semblance or dust."

"It _is_ hard. You make it look easy because you're good. That's what it is."

"You would say the same thing about Ruby," Weiss dismissed me.

"I'd say similar about Ruby. Ruby is more empathetic. I've also seen her shake in her resolve."

"And I don't?"

I crossed my arms. "I've never seen it. You do what you had to do to stay true to your principles. All the time. Without hesitation. That's the difference. Just let me gush over you for goodness sake."

She laughed a little at that. It was weak but it was true.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	91. Changes III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Weiss looked beautiful with the glow of a maiden to her shut eyes, closed in concentration. Her face divided by the line of Myrtenaster held up to her visage. Only the seam of her prominent scar could have detracted from the view. But the blemish, a slight battleworn imperfection, only added to the sense of flawless grace about her. It did not mar her beauty, it seemed to make her glow. Glow even more, that is.

She took a deep breath inward and with it rose up off the training room floor with a flare of wind to her wake. Then she sighed and fell to the floor. Collapsing in a slight heap from the strain of it.

We will never know how the powers would have manifested their way in Winter's hands. However, it would seem that flight is well within the realm of possibility for Weiss. Magic was abstract and in my case, subtle. In Weiss's hands the power was bold and defined by clear strokes of action.

It was clear to Weiss what the limits of her semblance were. So it was clear where the magic began and she ended. I didn't have that luxury. I still had no idea what the nature of my semblance truly was. Yeah it made me better, but what did that mean?

Weiss mastered herself and picked her body off from the floor. Then she focused again and drifted on upwards into the air on a gust of wind. She exhaled and allowed the wind to set her gently back on her feet. Her face was still schooled in quiet meditation. She didn't even show any sign that she'd accomplished something or had great success. Instead she remained with grim determination.

"She's progressing rather well with the training," Oscar told me. "I think so at least. It's been a while since I last trained a maiden personally and I think she's doing exceptional. Her sister chose well."

"I think it's better to not let Weiss hear that last bit. Her sister's selection is a bit of a touchy subject, I sense," I muttered back. "I think she'd rather not have the power."

"All the more reason to think it's in good hands with her. Salem won't be getting her hands on the relic of creation."

"Speaking of relics, what did you do with the relic of knowledge?" I asked him. "After I put myself in Atlas custody you took it."

"I'm not sure we should tell you…"

"Don't trust me, eh?"

"Yes well, can you blame me. Do you trust yourself not to fall into Salem's hands?"

"Can I be honest with you?" I asked.

"I should hope so," he replied.

"Then not really. She's like this dark star. Deep and entrenched inside of me. At all times she pulls at me. Like a bottomless pit inside my mind. Her tentacles are in my skull."

"Oh, is that all?" He asked jovially.

"I'm serious." And I truly wondered: is this all I have now?

"I can tell. Yet you remain around Ms. Rose and Ms. Schnee. They trust you. And you have built considerable mental defenses. I have hope for you yet."

"But not too much," I fired back.

"It's important to temper our expectations in the face of reality. You turned on us once even though it was through no fault of your own. It seems foolish to completely count out the possibility of that happening again. I am sorry."

"Don't be. It's all really my fault. At least the relic is in safe hands now. One more thing for me to not worry about."

"Your death concerns you."

"It does. Yeah. Not all of us are reincarnating immortal bastards. No offense."

He shrugged. "None taken."

"When I'm gone, I'm gone. And what will happen to my friends then? What will happen to the _world_ then? My sisters aren't going to fall apart like I will. And they're all ideal candidates for my Mother to use as maidens. Even if I do kill Cinder and I'm not sure that I can. You couldn't beat her. She killed you. And that was a whole maiden ago. So that leaves a slew of problems for me to deal with before I kick the bucket."

"You aren't alone."

"And don't you think I know that? Sometimes I wish I was. It would be less scary if it was only my dumbass dependent on me."

He grunted. "Maybe so."

"Every person I pass on the street is depending on me. Everyone everywhere needs me to be good enough to take down Cinder and I don't know if I am," I confessed.

"You are burdened with terrible purpose. I won't lie to you. We need you."

"And that's without getting into my girlfriends who I know want more from me than this half life I've been providing them. And all of that, all of it, is without really getting into my Mother. Or my sisters, really, who I still dream about saving."

"You don't have an easy road ahead of you."

"Impossible. Herculean. I'm going to have to face my Mother again and I pray I'll have the strength to cut her head off and sprint from her body with her head in tow. My own Mother. I'm matricidal. And my sisters imply that her powers over us are all the more terrifying in person. How do I deal with all of that, oh wise wizard? I'm beseeching you."

"The same way Ms. Schnee is dealing with her own responsibilities. The same way she is dealing with the death of her sister. With grim resolve and a dedication to see the task through to the end."

"You don't have to remind me of that either. She's so fucking strong. And I'm so fucking weak. Indecision and doubt plague me. Look at her. Fucking look at her _go_." And look at her go indeed. She was already going about mastering the powers.

Weiss was hovering in the air once more. Her blade unwavering and the gale unflinching.

"You should see yourself in action. You underestimate yourself," he promised.

"Am I? Against Cinder and my Mother? I'm good. _I'm_ _good_. I am. But that good? That's another question. You get it, right? What it means to have literally every single person alive depending on you. And quite a few dead ones too."

"All we can do is try our best," he returned.

"You sound like Ruby," I shot back.

"I shall take that as a compliment considering your relationship to her." Which, I mean, fair cop.

"You worked with her mother's team? Right?" I wondered.

A lengthy pause. "I did…"

"When are you going to tell her what happened to her mother for real?" I asked.

He sighed.

"You pit her mom against my Mom along with the rest of her team. Something happened. Something went wrong. Don't lie to me. I see through you," I vowed.

"A sad story for another time," he seemed to agree with me.

"You don't owe it to me," I intruded. "But you do owe it to Ruby. Don't forget. I'm not allowed to forget my responsibilities, you're not either. We both have terrible purpose," I turned back on him.

He let out another long sigh. "I haven't forgotten. Not a single one. That's not something time takes from you. I've forgotten how many people I have killed. I don't know how many people I let die. But I do know my responsibilities to the living. Do you doubt me?" He wondered.

"I still really don't want to from our last long chat." I was referring to just before I turned. When I told him I didn't trust him.

"But do you?" He persisted.

"I doubt everything ever since I killed my best friends. I would have lost track of my head if it weren't secured to my neck. I still almost did. Still almost do. Mother takes from me with each passing day. I'm getting weaker," I promised.

"You're getting stronger by my reckoning. Your mind is stronger. Your skills with a blade are improving all the time. You aren't without weakness but you are once again underestimating yourself. You have the reserves to stand up to Salem. I know it," he affirmed.

"Some offense meant this time…" I trailed.

"Alright," he answered.

"But what the fuck would you know?"

He didn't answer me.

My scroll buzzed mutely in my pocket. "Strife," I answered it.

"Cloud, my friend…" it was Aurum's voice coming through the little speaker.

"You've got some nerve after you waltzed me into her trap, calling me friend."

"You made it out alright. And she didn't burn me to death. That's a win-win. Can you blame me for not sticking my neck out any further than necessary?"

I sighed into the microphone. "I suppose not. You making out okay without your bar?"

"I have some back-up locations. And the Den is already being rebuilt. It was insured so it's fine. Might even come out with a bit of profit."

"But I didn't kill her. She's still out there. That's trouble."

"She's stirring up the underworld. Been making threats and killing anyone that gets in her way. She was concerned with one of the Schnees. Just like you were. I know that for sure."

"She already killed Winter Schnee," I informed him. "Is that all you have for me?"

"Not quite. I know where she's been staying. Ever since about a week ago she's been keeping her head low. She's in an apartment in Atlas. High class place for a lady on the run from the law. Twenty-three-hundred Windsor Avenue. Apartment 'v' two. Her and her green haired and tan friend are holled up there."

"Let's like I've got a date tonight," I muttered into the mic. "Thank you Aurum."

"Don't thank me. Just kill her. I don't need this," he was exasperated.

He cut the connection.

"Good news?" Ozpin asked me.

"Some. I have Cinder's location. I'm going to call up Penny and another friend and deal with her."

"Is your friend this Neapolitan?"

"She may be…"

"Be careful," Ozpin advised.

"I trust her. At least as far as Cinder is concerned. She's a sadistic bitch but she's reliable."

"I'll leave that in your judgement."

"You're going somewhere?" Weiss came up to me and asked.

"Going to fight Cinder Fall," I answered.

"I'm coming too," Weiss decreed.

"I don't think that's wise," Ozpin said.

At the same time I gave an, "absolutely not."

"What's the point in having these powers if I'm not going to use them to fight people like Cinder?" Weiss asked rhetorically.

"To keep them out of the hands of people like Cinder. If Cinder claims the winter maiden's powers she would be able to access the relic of creation," Ozpin tapped his staff against the ground. Then he lifted it and pointed it at Weiss. "You are not ready. Penny and Cloud and I suppose Neapolitan will fight Cinder."

"You're calling her up?" Weiss asked me.

"It's time to gang up on Cinder, that means all the help I can get. Maybe Ruby and the others too. Maybe Ace Ops as well if they're not busy. All the help I can get."

"Just everybody but me," Weiss replied.

"Now you're getting it."

"Fine. I'll just sit back and twiddle my thumbs." She sounded disgruntled. But she leaned forward and gave my cheek a quick peck of a kiss. "For luck," she stepped back.

I rubbed aty face with a dumbass grin. "I don't feel very lucky yet. Maybe one more-"

She hit me in the shoulder.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Penny meet Neo. Neo, Penny."

"It is a pleasure to meet you," Penny held out her hand for a shake but Neo didn't take it. She instead turned and gave me a long look.

"Penny is going to help me deal with Cinder. You fight Emerald Sustrai and together we'll come out on top of this thing. Cinder will be dead and we can move on with all of our lives. Just take Penny's damn hand, Neo."

Neo had to reach up to take Penny's still outstretched arm. She gave it one firm shake. Then Neo looked back at me. Something glinting in her eye. She pointed between the two of us.

"What about us?"

She held two fingers apart in a 'v' then closed them together, then opened them, then closed them again.

"We'll still be friends. That won't change even after Cinder dies."

My answer seemed to be good enough for her because she nodded. I wouldn't punish her for what she felt. We had grown fairly close even if it had been a few weeks since I last saw her. I had missed her as well.

"I'm a little on edge," I muttered. I hadn't taken any of the sedatives before this so I could feel my panic rising. This was it. This was the moment I had been truly preparing for ever since Beacon fell. The moment I would finally get my revenge against Cinder and avenge Pyrrha, my first partner perhaps even my first love. It was still all so confusing. The kiss the rush of the locker. All of it.

Neo held out a packed pipe and a lighter to me that she withdrew from somewhere on her person. I stared at the ground up THC and CBD crystals. My mouth watered as I smelled the plant. Greens… after so long.

"Is that wise before a fight like this?" Penny asked.

"I was as high as a kite when I killed Tyrian…" I trailed.

"That was Tyrian. This is two you-know-whats."

"Neo knows about the maidens. I told her," my eyes never left the pipe.

I reached out with a trembling hand and took the pipe from Neo. She handed me the lighter. She grinned up at me. I rotated the fire all the way around the bowl and burnt the greens to ash as I inhaled all of the smoke. It tasted _so_ good.

Immediately my head felt lighter and the panic I felt in my heart intensified as did the feeling of my clothes against my skin. I felt numb, yet awake.

"Cloud! What about your other meds?"

"They don't work," I said exhaling smoke. "This shit does. Man, I missed this. I can almost forget how I'm going to die to some stigma. I feel fantastic!"

"Well, this is the address we were given. Are we sure that it isn't a trap like last time?" Penny asked as we came up on the apartment.

"Oh course it could be a trap. But we gotta spring it anyway," I felt calm and handed the pipe back to Neo who grinned and waved her hand for me to keep it. I stuffed it into a deep pocket after tapping out the ash.

We took the elevator up to the second floor and found the 'v' apartment. I activated my semblance and let the blue glow wreath me. The flames licked up my body and I drew the broadsword from my back.

"Ready?" I asked my companions. The nausea from the pipe was pleasant. "Neo, pull that fire alarm. Let's get civilians out of the building." She reached over and flipped the switch on the grey wall. A siren started, loud and ringing.

"I'm combat ready," Penny replied.

Neo just nodded and tapped my shoulder. Her umbrella out and stiletto in hand.

Then I burst the door down with a mighty kick that splintered wood and launched the panels of fraying kindling inside.

I flew in with a mighty horizontal leap, bringing my great weapon to bear against those horrors that lurked inside.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	92. Changes IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Like a lamp light Cinder's weapon flickered into place in her hands. A bow and an arrow was set loose towards where I leapt in, flying over a couch in the middle of the room. I deflected it and rushed her, she pulled her weapon apart into two curved swords.

The fire alarm had given her some warning about our presence.

Emerald rolled off of the couch I flew over and Neo engaged her with the sound of shattering glass. Buffeting her with the umbrella then slashing at Emerald's throat, Neo went for the kill immediately. Emerald barely managed to extend her weapons in time to block and then like that I was past them and fighting Cinder in the open room.

I flexed my blade and shattered the great patio window in a smattering of glass as I swept my giant blade down on the woman I hated. Penny came in on rocket boots with the floating array of swords swinging in tandem with her outstretched hand.

Cinder was forced to back-flip over the approaching weapons then she shuffled back and closer to the shattered pane of glass as I shoved my weapon into the ground and tore it up. Pushing the blade at her chest. She jumped and landed on the edge of my weapon. Glass heels clicking against the Titania edge then she slashed twice down at my neck and head with a flurry of blows that rocked my head from side to side.

She flipped back and landed neatly on a pillar of flames that truly caught the place alight. If the fire alarm wasn't already going off and blaring in my ears it would have started then. She threw the pillar of fire at me and it raced across the long living room.

Then her swords matched several Penny's floating array. Two laser bolts shot from Penny's other floating swords. Cinder was pushed closer to the shattered window where the window breezed past. She jumped out of the window, stepped on a flare of fire that let her hover then came leaping feet first back in through another window, shattering it and sending glass splashing across the fine room's furniture and at my face.

I ignored the glass, trusting my aura, and brought my weapon at her in a tremendous sideways swing that she just slipped to her knees and slid underneath. She shot back to her feet easily and cut at my exposed back. It was my turn to be pushed out the open window. I hovered in the air, reversing tractionless on the empty wind before I came sweeping back in with my blade over my head and tearing through the roof of the fine apartment in my attempt to slice at her. Dust and stone came falling down on her with my enormous blade.

Flecks of stone must have washed into her but she flowed backward into the room, sweeping her swords upwards and blocking my cut from five feet away. My reach was hard to escape from while she herself remained in striking range against me.

She kicked me in the side and would have toppled me to the ground but I just floated and brought my blade diagonally upwards at her.

Penny came in at the same time and five blades at various heights flew at Cinder. Cinder jumped and olled in the air to dodge the blades, then she blocked my upwards swing while in mid-air and the force of my attack actually launched her upwards and through the ceiling. She grunted as she collided with it, then went through it.

I took a moment to watch Emerald struggle against Neo's acrobatic style. Neo flipped and put her foot cleanly across Emerald's face and slashed her stomach with the thin blade she carried.

Seeing that I turned to the hole in the ceiling. I flew up through the wooden beans and tiled floor and ceiling above, slashing with my blade and tearing my way up with my body. I landed on the floor of the apartment above. It was as nice as the one below with cool furnishings and grey metal lined walls. It was all very modern.

"I'm going to burn you to death," Cinder informed me coldly. I said nothing back. It was a time for action more than words. I had said enough. I'd nearly done enough. But she would fall this day. Cinder slashed at me with her left blade quickly and followed it with her right in a diagonal downwards fashion that I tilted my blade to block both of.

She tried to kick my left leg out from under me. I let her and rotated freely in the air without touching the ground and cut at her stomach while floating upside down. She had to turn her weapons sideways in an 'x' to block. I followed the motion like I was in zero gravity and rotated so I was once more upright but still hovering a few inches off the ground.

I brought my weapon down on her from above next. Flying above her I slammed it into her weapons with enough force to depress and shatter the tiles around her. But we were both made of sterner stuff than even the stone floor work.

I laughed in her face and swept forward on nothing, bringing my weapon from low to high in an slice brilliantly fast, it slammed her all the way back into the kitchen of the apartment and rocked her over the granite kitchen island counter and left her depressing in the fridge metal.

She whipped back up to face me and there was a _shazoom_ of lightning that arced from her body and flung me steaming and hissing through the windows of apartment 'v' 3.

I fell. For a terrible moment as the electricity traced through me I was unable to reverse myself and I feel out through the the side of the building near Atlas's edge and down towards Mantle.

When I finally caught myself on empty air and flew back up to the apartment I'd been launched from Penny had already reengaged Cinder with the blades on strings of wire. Penny slashed and hinted for Cinder but she was evasive. Her blades of glass glowed red hot and she slipped the blade through one of the wires of Penny's weapon and a sword clattered to the ground.

I hurled back into where the alarm sounded. My head rung like a bell with the moment. I felt scared. I felt like this was the moment I had prepared myself for over the course of months. I'd kill Cinder, and I'd do it with Limit. I felt the power coursing through me.

I landed and came sweeping at where Cinder was flying with jets of flame at her feet. With my feet upon the ground lost myself in the sounds of combat. I came slashing at her with my blade while standing and when she dodged in a airborn cartwheel. I took off straight at her. I felt the flames of my semblance move across my skin. On the wing of will and wind I came at her with the force of a titan and slammed her back.

When she was dead and gone, I'd finally be able to move on. Be on way to whatever was next. One obstacle down. Pyrrha finally avenged. What I wouldn't give for her to see me now. Or to see her again in general. She was not but ash now. But it was still a serious experience. Cinder was still a massive threat.

Flames spread from Cinder Fall's dress and began to coat the room. They lapped at my aura. I ignored the burn of them and swept at her again. Penny whirled a half dozen blades at Cinder which she blocked and flipped between. Penny fired a laser at her at the same moment I shot a blade-beam out which slammed into the stove and dented the metal. Cinder rolled her shoulders and arms Ina kind of waving motion and fire poured from her body like a river. It forced me to go high up above the blast and Penny was caught up in it.

Penny held out a hand but her aura was burnt through and she was thrown back into a wall next to the shattered open windows.

I brought my sword down like the hammer of a god. Cinder blocked but she was thrown bodily down through the floor back to 'v' two and the floor of that apartment as well. I gave chase once again. Rupturing my way through tile and stone and brick and pipe.

The siren of the fire alarm still rang around us but we gave it no need. We knew what the source of the cacophony was. We were at the center of it.

I hovered at Cinder as she attempted to rise and gave two quick horizontal slashes. She blocked the first but the second caught her side on her aura and sent her stumbling back.

A Grimm black hand extended from where she slid back to. It slashed at me with the curved sword wildly. Uncaring for the normal kinds of disadvantage such swings might cause in terms of leaving the user open to counter attack. She had found a way to out range me and the impressive length of Crocea Mors in its broadsword form.

She hacked at me diagonally but I blocked twice and attempted to maneuver around to fight at where the malignant arm attached to the otherwise whole person. I had had enough of human-Grimm hybrids. Every time I looked in the mirror I saw one. I loathed it. I loathed the place where Cinder's arm turned black as though with deep rot. I detested the rest of her form as well. But that place where the arm grew like a tumor revolted me to the point of seeing red.

When I tried to close the gap by skirting around her the long taloned arm followed me close. I leapt over the destroyed couch in the middle of the open living space and it slashed up feathers behind me in its pursuit of me.

I couldn't get around it.

I'd have to go through it.

No sooner had I realized the thought that a second torrent of flames poured from where Cinder swung her other saber. Crooked and cruel, the glass blade spread fire like butter over toast over the whole of the room in a wide wake that Neo only just dodged and Emerald rolled to the side.

Cinder seemed apathetic about burning her own ally if it meant torching me. If only a little.

The clawed arm slashed at me with the curved sword, I blocked it. Then riposted and bisected her arm at the wrist. It fell in smattering of Grimm chunks releasing a horrendous odor. Cinder shrieked and black mist poured from the arm with a foul stench. From the note of origin of the hideous odor another hand sprouted. Formless smoke taking concrete shape.

I closed the distance and she drew a new sword from clean air and grasped it in a three clawed hand freshly grown. The glass weapon just the same as the one before. Then she spun and pointed both her weapons at me at the same time she took a knee and a thunderbolt narrowly missed my head.

I kneed her in the face and flung her back into a wall and out into the hallway. Penny rejoined me and a wave of blades chased Cinder where she rolled in the carpeted walkway between apartments. Penny used it feel herself in and crashed out into the hallway. She jumped off of a wall, then thrust forward a boot of fire and sprinted after the direction Cinder retreated.

My jaw wholly ached. I realized in that moment before I flew out the door and after my quarry that I was holding my teeth tight and bashing them together with enormous force from the stress of it all. It was an odd thing to notice at a time like this where my deliverance was close at hand. My only thought should have been on Cinder and helping Penny. It wasn't.

I popped my head around the corner and nearly ate a fireball to the face which hurled down the long hallway from where Cinder and Penny were fighting. Penny swung a trail of swords at Cinder's head and torso that Cinder blocked the first of, weaved between the next two, and ducked under a fourth and deflected a fifth. Then she counter attacked with a scissoring thrust of her curved blades that caught Penny by the chest and she sliced through one of the thin wires which held Penny's swords aloft. Then she kicked Penny in the chest but it was sort of like kicking a refrigerator and Penny hardly wobbled.

Up I flew, tearing into the walls of the hallway with my enormous blade in tow, over my shoulder, ready to swing it around and down on Cinder. She saw me coming and maneuvered Penny between us so that I had to flow my assault. I front-flipped over them both and brought my blade down on Cinder as I did. She rolled and the sword sunk deep into the ground.

Cinder kicked back with a heel that caught me in the face at the same time she jumped forward at Penny and slashed across her body.

I reeled back from the glass shoe before I bullied my sword free of the ground and thrust it forward at her. She leaned to the side and I swung the thrust in her direction but she bowed fluidly underneath the swing and it left my weapon once more buried. This time in a wall to my left. She slashed me across the torso and she side flipped and cut one of Penny's hovering wires. Then she landed and threw her arms out at both of us.

A gale of wind swept over me in the narrow hallway and threw me all the way to the end where a tall window loomed while Penny was flung bodily by the disembodied force back in the direction of the elevators.

The wind shattered the window before I reached it. The pressure, turning the smooth surface into jagged crystals that exploded outwards. I cut my back on one particular jagged edge. My aura protected me but it was another blow to add to the register and after that I was once more falling into open space above Mantle.

I caught myself spread eagle on a bed of will and flew back up through the window. I dragged my blade over the carpeted floor and pushed it through the solid woodwork and metal all the way down the hallway to Cinder. She crossed her blades but I caught her on them. I shoved her all the way back, pushing her all the way down the hallway in the blink of an eye.

I pushed her all the way back to where Penny was recovering.

Cinder looked backwards.

Penny thrust her blades forwards. They ruptured Cinder's back through her ribs, lungs, and other tissues. Cinder cried out but it was just a gargle of blood. Her lungs filling with the crimson liquid and pouring out through her mouth.

Three swords speared Cinder at the back and all the way through and red began to Leo through the torn black dress and down to the floor. One thrust through the small of her back and upwards, the next piled through just below the front of the rib cage and sideways, and the last sprung through her chest just below the heart and angled downward.

Cinder spat blood on Penny's porcelain face. Flecks of red matched her little brown freckles. Penny flinched and blinked back. She hadn't expected the blows to be enough to mortally wound Cinder. It came as a shock to me too, the one who had done much of the pushing.

Cinder still looked back at Penny's eyes. Then her eyelids began to flutter closed. She tried to keep them open with one last feel backwards, eyes widening as she strained to keep them open. Her eyes locked on Penny. Then they closed.

There was a rush as energy flowed into the recoiling Penny. Fresh greens and deep oranges flowed into Penny's body. Flecks of light spun through the air and Penny breathed them in. Penny collapsed, eyes glassy, blood still trickled down her face as the power of the maidens rushed into her body. It was remarkable to watch.

I stepped back and Cinder slid off of Penny's blades. She fell face down on the floor next to the line I had torn up with my blade. Her glass weapons toppled from limp fingers and hit with dull thuds on the ground of the apartment building, floor two.

Penny's hands reached up to her own face in horror. "I killed her," Penny whispered.

I knelt beside her and leaned my weapon against the wall. "You did. You did well." I encouraged. "It was the right thing to do. It's what we came here for. You had to know that. It was her place to die today." I stood up. "I'm going to go help Neo. Stay here until I come back. Don't move. I'll be back. Just rest for. Moment. Breath."

I took up my sword once more, there was still work to be done. More killing to do.

"It gets easier. It does. It's hard but killing does get easier," I told her.

"Fuck you, Cloud. I hate this," Penny whispered.

I reeled.

I stepped back.

I picked my feet up and I flew away from the girl in that hallway near the puddle of blood.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	93. Real Girl

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Cloud was all orthogonal.

His attacks moved in horizontal and vertical aspects with rare diagonal transitions which only served to take one by surprise when they did occur. They were oblique and he moved swiftly from one thing to the next.

That was how he fought me.

That was how he fought Cinder and shoved her onto my swords.

I had killed her. A life quenched by my own hands.

Cloud didn't get it.

I had killed someone. Didn't he know how that made me feel? I had always thought it would be him that would kill Cinder and not I. He was, after all, stronger than me. He was stronger than anyone. He was the most powerful person on the planet. It should have been him. It couldn't have been me. It was so orthogonal that I should be the one to kill her.

I had just reacted on instinct. I'd put up those blades to be ready, not to kill her. I thought her aura would shield her anyways. I guess it had just been too much. It was all so much. It hurt so bad. I felt as though I had been the one stabbed through the chest thrice.

I knew that she was a bad person. I knew that the plan was for her to die, as well. I wasn't a fool. But believe it or not it didn't make me feel much better to know those things. It hurt. It burned. Now I was a maiden. Now I was _two _maidens. I should have been strong. This was what I was made for. But that didn't make me feel much better either. I stayed where Cloud had left me. I just rested with my hands on my knees and what remained of my floating array left fallen around me in the hallway.

I felt like I was going to throw up. But I didn't need to eat. How was that possible? Explain that.

I felt nauseous. I felt a sort of existential dread rile up from inside me at my murder like bile in my throat. Sure it could be argued that Cloud had killed her as much as I did. But I wouldn't. I couldn't argue that. It had been I. It wasn't his blades that had done the deed. He had only pushed her. I had been the one to stab her. My swords covered in bright crimson, I rested with my hands on my knees.

I shuddered. It was uncontrollable. I shuddered. It was irreconcilable. I was a killer now.

I had murdered. For the first time my name joined some enormous list. And on that list were the names of everyone that had ever killed somebody. Cloud's name was on that list. Now, mine was too.

I had set out for blood and by the gods, I had found it. If only I had known before hand that it would be like this. If only I had known that it would be so nauseating. The vertigo struck me like a hammer. It spun me away to distant shores soaked in red and leaking from the chilling body before me.

The speed of it was dizzying as I rested still.

I had felt her life fade and become a part of me. This murderous witch who probably deserved to die was now inside of me. She was a part of me. I was part her. In my truest self. In the most inner sense.

I felt violated. Despite that I had been the violator. My blades had been the tools to penetrate Cinder's body. My body was wracked with chills. A deep bone crushing cold. It wreathed my body and though it filled my entirety, there was no room for it inside me. I felt simultaneously crushed and expanded.

Was this what it meant to kill and do one's duty? Was this what I was for? I didn't want to be for this, then. I despised my own destiny. I wanted to rebel and rage.

All I did was wait shuddering on the floor for Cloud to return.

I had sworn at him. It was the first time I had ever sweared. It was so vulgar. But that thing he had told me was so horrible, it was too terrible. I didn't want it to get easier. Murder should never become trivial, this thing that I had done deserved to make me nauseous. The vulgarity matched me at that moment. I felt disgusted with reality. It was all wrong. It was all so sideways, it was all so horrible.

What did it mean to be a murderer? I wanted to know now that I was one. Perhaps I was just a hair too late with that worry. Maybe I should have wondered before now. Would that have changed things, though? Probably not. But I would have liked to feel better about myself.

For so long I had wondered what it meant to be a person? To be real. But that mattered little to me now. I was a killer. If only I was as stone cold as Cloud was. If only I was as strong as him.

Even with everything stacked against him, his birth, his father, his mother, his sisters, even his death, he still managed to overcome. He managed to be a hero and what we needed him to be. I wanted to be what I needed to be. I wanted to be as strong as he was. I wanted to not feel this hideous vortex in my heart.

It felt like I was on the throes of a nightmare. Unknowable forces spun me over the tops of strange dead cities as I sat still. I was going to be sick. I wanted to scream. It felt like it would be a relief to shriek wildly and with abandon. I wanted to throw myself voluntarily along into that horrendous maelstrom of dream doom. Like Cloud had and did and was.

Instead I huddled my arms in on myself, hugging my chest tightly and I rocked back and forth with low murmurs. It was all too much. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted to get off this ride. Vertigo hit me again in a dizzying spell that seemed to go on and on forever. I felt like I was riding in on a spiral.

I embraced my desire to embrace my desire to not feel this way anymore. I wanted to weep like a widow and I did. How could such beautiful lights from the maiden transfer burn my soul like this? I swung on that spiral, ever downwards, ever inwards.

"Penny…" Cloud's voice came to me like a distant dream. I could smell the marijuana on him even over the iron of the blood I knelt in. I reached up with a blood soaked porcelain hand and he hauled me to my feet with a firm hand.

"Did you get Emerald?" I asked.

"No. She escaped. She used her illusions again. Come on, let's keep going."

He led me by the hand to the stairs and we walked slowly down like I was a frail old woman. His guiding hand on my back the whole time.

I was unsteady on my feet. I had no blood to rush to my head but I imagined that this was what that was like. I had no adrenaline to die down in my system to leave me at a loss so I remained steady as a rock in that regard. Black spells came rushing into my vision as Cloud led me downstairs and out of the apartment complex. Overthinking, overanalyzing left me paralyzed.

"You're alright Penny. You'll be okay. I know how much it hurts now."

"I don't want it to ever stop hurting. It's what I deserve."

"I know. I know. Believe me, I know. It's something that doesn't fade. I still have the psychic scars of when I first killed someone. It'll heal but it doesn't fade. Eventually you grow to live with the pain," he explained ever so gently. Like the wrong word or phrase would set me to shatter.

"I think I'm going to faint but my body doesn't know how," I murmured distantly. The words took forever to reach my lips from my throat. They came from so deep within myself that they echoed for miles and miles before they finally left me. And by that time I hardly felt the same.

"Everybody responds to it differently. The important thing is that you're still standing."

"How can that be the important thing? I killed someone."

"We killed someone," he corrected me softly. "And the important thing is to keep moving forward and not let it hold you down. You can put yourself through hell if you really feel like it. Don't let yourself. You know that Cinder had to die."

I flinched.

"It had to be one of the two of us to end her," he continued. "And we're still marching forward. Come on, let's get you back to the academy."

"I want to see my father." I hiccuped. "I mean I need to see him. I don't want to talk about it." I didn't hiccup.

"Talking about it is healthy. I do know what you're going through."

He continued to lead me with a hand on mine and the other wrapped around the small of my back. "You're a killer," I accused him.

He said nothing. He grimaced. He was a killer.

"I don't want to be like that. I want to do my duty but I don't want to be a killer. But it's too late for that. I already killed."

"I… sometimes the world robs us of our choice. It takes our free will from us and forces us to do things. I've probably killed more than I could have helped. I could have done more. I could have done less," he confessed to me.

"But this wasn't one of those times you could have done less. You came to kill her," I was still accusing him. Why was I doing that?

"I did," he said it like a grievous confession.

"Was it everything you hoped for?" I didn't mean to ask sardonically but it came out that way. I wasn't sure how someone could have wanted this and I judged him harshly for it in that moment.

He scowled up his face. "No. Her death brought me no peace. None of the relief I expected to receive came when she died. Instead my teeth are still set on edge. It's like my friend said. Hatred is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die. Now I'm left wondering what do I do now?"

"You spend time with Ruby and Weiss. You get what you wanted," I replied stoic.

"I want…" he trailed. "I want her to die again. I want more. More vindication. I feel lackluster with what I actually got out of this. I want to kill her all over again. But I can't. And that wouldn't make me happy anyways."

"What would make you happy, Cloud?" I really wanted to know. He had tried drugs and murder.

"I don't know. I think nothing will make me happy. This was a bad mood I was in but it's been a year so I think this is just my personality now. I think I'm about to have a panic attack to be completely honest with you. I don't know what to do with myself. For so long I was devoted to avenging Pyrrha and now that that's done… now that that's done I have no idea what I'm going to do now."

"Your mother is still out there. And your sisters. The successful models."

"You're right of course. I still have to deal with them. One way or another. Saphron and her gang I want to save but I don't know if that's possible. And I don't know of that would make me happy either."

"You may have to kill them," I said it like a threat.

"Yes…" he whispered.

"That bothers you."

"It… it does. They're my family. I have so many memories of being with them even if I know that they're fake. It hurts me to think about hurting them. But you're right. I may have to."

I walked in silence beside him for a long moment towards the academy, away from where police lines were forming. Atlas Sec was setting up around the building pretty fast. One look at me and they let us through their lines and rushed into the building past us.

"They're minds are hacked. You know that don't you? Your sisters."

"I know. But so was mine. Is mine?" He wondered. "Something is wrong with me. In my brain. Just lucky my soul isn't also fucked. Or maybe it is. I'm not sure. Can't be sure."

When he swore it just reminded me of when I swore at him. I didn't regret it. What he said to me was horrible. He deserved it. He didn't seem to mind or take offense. Even though to some degree I wanted him to. I wanted to offend him after what he said to me. It was spiteful. But it wasn't uncalled for. What he told me was one of the worst things anybody had ever said to me.

'_It gets easier._'

How else could I have responded? What else was I supposed to do to react? What did he think I was going to say? Should he be surprised that I responded with venom?

Did he really think that would make me feel better? How could it? I looked at the light blood on my hands. It was turning crusty and hard and a darker shade of crimson, almost black.

When we made it back to the academy he let me go and race ahead. I had to find my father. I needed to talk to him. I found him on the lower levels.

"Father…" I trailed off.

"Penny, my sweet girl!" His chair turned so that he could face me. "Penny! You've got blood on your face! And your hands and clothes!"

"I killed someone Pa. They were bad and evil and maybe they deserved it but I killed someone!"

"Oh Penny…" he held out his hands to me and I ran and embraced him. I squeezed him tight and I started to cry. He didn't seem to mind the blood I got on his clothes and he wiped my face where tears ran crimson.

"You're alright," he whispered. "My precious little girl, you're alright. You're not hurt are you?"

"I am uninjured. Your aura protected me."

"Your aura, Penny. My darling girl. All parents give up a part of themselves. That's what it takes to be a parent." He told me gently.

"I don't think all of my… all of my friends would say the same about their parents."

"I'll keep you safe my sweet child. You're alright. What friends are these?"

"Cloud. And Weiss. I can't imagine having to fight you the way that they struggle against their own parents. It breaks my heart. I need you Pa."

"Shshsh." He hushed me. "I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you. And we'll do what we can for your friends. How are you doing? What happened?"

"Cloud he… shoved Cinder Fall all the way back and I put up my weapons and they went right through her. She bled all over me. I was the last thing she thought of when she died. She was looking me right in the eyes. I watched her slip away. The light just sort of went out of her. It was horrible. I don't know how Cloud does it."

"Has your friend Cloud killed people before?"

"A lot of people. He doesn't even know how many himself. That's how many. I don't want to be like that. I can't be like that. I won't. I'd rather die."

"Oh my darling. You don't mean that do you? You won't hurt yourself will you?"

I wiped a tear. "No. I want to live. And I want to be able to live with myself. Is it difficult to do both?" I wondered

"Yes. So difficult," my Pa answered.

"I can't live like this. Like Cloud does. Killing people is too much to ask of me. I won't do it."

"Your path ahead isn't an easy one, my baby. You said that you're the maiden now?"

I shuddered. Cinder Fall was inside of me now. Deeper than my bones. In my soul.

I nodded at my father.

"When I die will you dig me up and resurrect me again?" I asked. The question made him flinch.

"I told you I don't have the aura left for us both."

"So would you die and bring me back if I died again? Tell me Pa. I remember dying. The light slowly fading and my grasp on the world releasing. I don't want to come back again. Let me stay dead."

"You're not going to die again, my baby."

"Answer me!" I shouted at him. "Promise me that you won't bring me back again!"

"I… I can't, cute girl. No parent should outlive their children."

"No child should outlive their parent either. The world isn't fair. Do you love me?"

"Of course I do, my sweet summer child."

"Then when I die again, and I will. Being the maiden will kill me. And when I do then don't resurrect me. Promise me!"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	94. Changes V

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I let Penny walk away from me. My skull buzzed with the THC and all the other drugs in my system. I felt myself still on edge and Neo appeared beside me in a subtle shattering of reality. She waved at me.

"Hey Neo," I greeted her reappearance right back. Behind me is the heart of the city of silver and soft blues. A jeweled circlet worn about the neck. It choked me with its aristocracy and sanctimoniousness. So fragile, the glass and gems. Was it always on the brink of collapse? Or just when I really looked at it. The Grimm outnumbered humanity and the faunus. My Mother and the wizard played chess for countless centuries. People rushed about. They made me dizzy.

Fiery reds and oranges like strata lit up the sky and the crystal and glass buildings above the rock. I prefer prink, I think.

Neo nodded at me right back.

"Job's done," I said from lack of things to say. What more could be said? It was over. After so long now. Half of my life had been devoted to this vengeance. Now I had it. I'd done it. The mission was accomplished. I suppose I could go home, wherever that was for me.

She nodded again. Ever silent. Ever mute. I wished that she would talk. To just say something to me. Only the once would be enough.

Then she pumped a fist into the air. That was as talkative as she ever was.

"Celebrate?" I asked. I was trying to interpret her. I'd gotten rather good at it and some things you didn't forget. Like riding a bicycle.

She affirmed me with a wide grin.

"Fuck it. Why not? Ding dong the bitch is dead. I'll drink to that." Maybe that would make me feel better. Maybe it just hadn't settled in that she was dead. Maybe I could hope.

She mimed guzzling a drink.

"Where you thinking? You know a place?" We turned back to the crystal city on the rock, like a geode. The late sun hit the buildings with streaks of oranges down to crimson. The sky flashed at me like a knife off of a hundred sheets of metal and panes of smooth surfaces. Gods, this city has no sharp edges. There was nothing to cut myself on. It was so smooth and flat and all the edges were sanded down and smoothed over like seashells.

My friend turned on her heels with a _click _and I followed her down Atlesian streets away from the academy where all my responsibilities lay. My future, whatever that was, could wait. For now I wanted to kick back and drink with a friend. Sue me. I'm only human. And there was a weight in my stomach that I could scarcely manage to drag around with me. Maybe liquor would lighten my load. Probably not, though. I knew this weight would stay with me. It was in my stomach not my mind where the alcohol would buzz me.

The weight of all the things that hovered over me could stand to be held off a little longer. I wanted them to wait. Today I had won. Today I had found a victory. I just didn't feel it in my heart yet, but that was okay. I would feel it in time. I just had to let the message really get to me. Cinder was gone. The weight became long and drawn out. It doesn't pass. There is no reason for it to pass. It becomes intolerable.

Dead.

Caput.

I walk with one foot in the gutter and I smile at Neo with fragility. It is I who is made of glass and set fit to shatter. And when I do I'll slice everyone that I love.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I stumbled back to the academy. Neo and I had hopped from one club to the next to the next. We were never still and I danced like a man on fire when I could. I waved my arms in the air and I twisted my legs like they were made of jelly. Loud music, stiff drinks, THC and CBD, the works. I partook in them all. I found all those drugs that I liked. The concoction blitzed me pleasantly.

I had said my goodbyes to Neo and promised to meet her again soon. And I would. She was a close friend and I had missed her. I didn't have many friends. Most came from Beacon and Neo was an exception. I met her at my lowest point and she raised me up. We both helped each other with nothing else to gain for it.

My head swam and my blood felt like lava from the way I had drugged myself. My cheeks were flushed with the drinks and there was an incredible rush behind my eyes from THC and the brew of antipsychotics and other drugs I had in my system. It felt so good.

Here was the thing about antipsychotics. It's impossible to prove that they work because no one knows how the brain works. Instead they give sick people drugs and ask them if they feel better. And if they do so statistically it becomes an antipsychotic. They're happy pills, don't you know?

Still, I felt empty inside. They never fixed that. None of the drugs did. I felt nothing all night long. Just a cold void in my chest that none of the celebrations filled.

In the end killing Cinder hadn't given me any joy. Not a shred of the stuff. Where was the pleasure? Where was the satisfaction? Maybe it was because it was Penny had been the one to kill her but I didn't think so. That didn't feel quite right. Maybe murdering my enemies didn't thrill me anymore. I thought I liked my boot on the necks of my enemies. I thought it brought me satisfaction. But this time, this kill, nothing. There was nothing at all and this was supposed to be my most important kill. The most important one of my whole life and I felt just absolutely empty.

Murder wasn't something I was supposed to like. But there was a part of me that did. I enjoyed killing people. I was good at it, too. I didn't like that part of me though.

Sure, I was glad she was dead. It was another mission accomplished and one load off of my mind. But it didn't bring me anything other than that. Even a night of wild debauchery hadn't helped at all.

Why? What was wrong with me? (I mean besides the already discussed and obvious.)

Pyrrha was finally avenged. I had brought her justice even against all odds and from beyond that grave she didn't get. So why wasn't I happy? In the end, I found myself just missing Pyrrha. The glow of her eyes. The burn of her hair. The sound of her voice and the soft cherry smell she carried. I missed it all.

My eyes burned with tears. My constitution faltered.

I didn't want Cinder dead. Not really. I never did. I never had, I realized.

I wanted my friend back. Or whatever the fuck she was to me. Something which was deeply confusing. That was the truth of it. It made my heart feel jagged in my throat.

That's what I wanted. I wanted her back. I'd known her for half my life and she'd been my partner for that time. _My _partner.

And nothing I could ever do was going to change that and give her back to me. I still wasn't ready to let Pyrrha go and move on. Killing Cinder didn't change where I was at with my grief. I felt no respite from the agony of my loss. It tugged at me, pulling me down, down, down.

It pulled me from the bottom of one bottle to the next. It blew me along like ash from my pipe on a breeze. I found nothing. No comfort or solace in the drugs which mixed and put me into a beautiful cross-fade. My brain buzzed and the drugs hummed inside me. But still I couldn't forget. I couldn't even decide if I wanted to forget and still I couldn't forgive my own weakness. If only I had been stronger then rather than now. What I wouldn't trade and give for the chance to save her life. It felt like I had no skin.

What was I? What was this heat? What was this chill? I realized I would never truly be happy like this but what could I do to change it.

I found Weiss and Ruby waiting in my room. Weiss was standing but Ruby was sitting with her legs folded on the bed, my bed. I watched them both with parched eyes and a certain thirst.

"We waited for you…" Weiss trailed, her arms folded.

"Sorry. I went out and celebrated with Neo."

"Make you feel any better?" Weiss asked. There was something judgemental in her tone, but also something concerned. So I told the truth.

"Not really," I sighed.

"You stink. Like a dank stink. And like alcohol," Ruby complained. She walked up and hugged me.

"It's marijuana and alcohol, yeah," I confessed.

"Cloud…" Weiss folded her arms disapprovingly. "On your drugs? Do you really think that's a good idea? Do you like making us worry?"

"Weiss…" Ruby trailed off. Weiss stopped. "What happened, Cloud?"

"I thought I would enjoy Cinder's death," I began. "I wanted to enjoy it. Wanted to savor it. I thought I could finally be free once I had justice for Pyrrha. But there is no justice. If there was she would still be alive. Ren and Nora, too. And my problems… my enemies have only grown in number and power since this time last year. Everything is pretty much as bad as it was yesterday, even my success today with Penny doesn't change that or save my mind. I don't know how I can go on. I have no hope. There's not a drop of hope inside me. The gods are capricious and cruel. Or maybe just apathetic. I'm not sure which is worse. I'm not sure which is true. But I do know this, this planet is godforsaken. In this absurd universe how is there anything but despair?"

They stared at me. Weiss's jaw worked for a long moment. I went on though. I mustered through. I had to tell somebody. Tell somebody anything at all. Tell them, these two, everything.

"I struggle against my evil nature and I think that that is good but in my heart I know I am fallible. I am guilty of sin. In my soul I know sin. And in the end I'm going to fall apart anyways. I don't think I can give you the family you want, Rubes." I rubbed my face hard with my hand. "I don't see any meaning in raising kids. Especially with my Mother still around. It's all fit to collapse and become nothing and meaningless. I have nothing I want to pass along anyways."

It was worse than that. So much worse. It was unbearable. I was in pain just being alive.

"If my Mother looks at me wrong," I snapped my fingers. "I'll disappear."

Ruby and Weiss were quiet for a long time.

"Cloud I love you," Ruby began. "That means something to me. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes not so much." I looked her dead in her greying eyes. They seemed to lack their usual luster and seemed a dullish hue. The tips of her crimson hair hung low over her face and it seemed like she could hardly look at me. "All I can think about is the pressing presence of my Mother and the doom my father left me in his inheritance. Why tremble with emotions that aren't even there? In the end I'm just an empty puppet. I think that I love you. And I think that that is good too, but then I am consumed by this nothingness and despair or my Mother's presence and suddenly it seems like nothing at all."

Tears ran down Ruby's face at my confession. "You're real, Cloud. You're real. You're not an empty shell. I can see it in your eyes."

"I don't think that I am. When I look in the mirror I see a manikin. I can't keep this up. How do you keep going? Weiss, after everything you've been through how do you have the strength to move on?"

"I have Ruby. She has hope enough for three." Weiss spoke after only a moment's hesitation. "It's easy to give in to despair. With my sister… with my sister I wanted to give up. But I can't. Not yet. I… I have dreams. I have dreams of establishing lasting peace between the humans and the faunus. I even have dreams of having a family one day. With you, perhaps, if you're willing to provide. I want my dreams. I want my future. I want my goals. I want a world without Salem in it. That means something to me. My friends, too, they matter to me. I didn't have that through most of my life but I do now and I like it. I like what I have built up here. Don't you?" She wondered at me. "The relationships I have are strident and true. You can't have thought that killing Cinder would bring you lasting peace. You can't have thought it would be the end to all your problems. You can't have thought that it would bring Pyrrha back. You must have known that," Weiss finished.

I slumped against a wall and rubbed my hand around my face and through my spiky hair. "I did and I didn't. I thought that it would be something, at least. I thought it would mean something after all this time I dedicated to revenge. But I just feel empty inside. What am I supposed to focus on now? For… a half of my life killing Cinder has been my main target and now that I finally got it, and I feel so empty, I don't know what to think. It feels like some sort of sick joke the universe is playing on me. It gave me what I wanted, or what I thought I wanted, at least, and then it snatched happiness from my jaws."

"Don't you want to defeat Salem and be free? To save the planet?" Ruby asked. "Don't you want me? Don't you want Weiss?"

A low shaking breath left me, "yes. I do so badly. I want to live. I want to have my life. But it's no good. In truth I'm doomed. We try and be optimistic but that's the fact of the matter."

"Dilly-dally shilly-shally. Then have those things you want with us. Don't hold back and act like you're doing it on our account," Ruby protested. "Because we want you. Even if you are going to die. We still want you anyways."

"I'm not fit to be with anyone. Not you. Not my friends. Nobody."

"Dilly-dally shilly-shally! You're here with us but you're not letting yourself just be. You can't let your fears rule over you. Then you're as much a slave as if you gave in to Salem," Weiss murmured. "We're all doomed. That's the human-faunus condition. It's what it means to be a person. And the world is absurd but that doesn't make it hopeless. It just makes it unreasonable, and that is all. You can still have meaning and you can still not give in to despair."

I said nothing. I just leaned against the wall and rubbed at my skull.

"Cloud? Would you let me have your kids even if we don't defeat your mother?" Ruby asked. Her voice was small and it had a pleading note to it. "I don't want her to stop me from leading my life. I want my family."

"No," I fired. My voice was brittle and fit to crackle. Like a log in a fire. It was brittle and nearly broke. "I can't do that to some kid. Especially not my kid. It's too dangerous."

She was crying. I knew it would break her big ol' Ruby heart to hear me say it. But I had to be honest with her. I believed in honesty. I couldn't look at Ruby and lie to her. It was impossible. It burned me to do it, though. Like I was staring into the sun. The glare of it all was immeasurably intense. I wanted to give her what she wanted and I even could want to have a kid with her. I could see it. It wasn't at the top of my wants but a family… it sounded nice. It seemed like a pleasant thought experiment but that's all it was to me. That was all it could be.

I couldn't do it. Not with my Mother around who could just infect an infant and control them right underneath my nose. She could torture my child. My child. My children. With Ruby. Ruby's children. Her babies. My babies. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't do it.

I couldn't. And my deteriorating body might be transferred along too. How could I do that to somebody?

"I'm sorry. You should find somebody else. Somebody who isn't a hopeless cause."

"I want you!" Ruby shouted at me and I flinched like I'd been smacked in the mouth by a goddamn tree branch. "I'll save you! You'll see!" She vowed. "And we'll have our family. And even if you die… I'll raise them in your memory. A part of you will be with me. Always."

She ran across the room and wrapped her hands around my waist and squeezed me tightly. I reached down and put my arms around her. I cried a little too. Weiss came over and I wrapped an arm around her as well. My wide frame was large enough to wrap up both of their petite ones. Their shoulders were so narrow and so small.

"I'm sorry. I know you both want more from me. I want to give it to you too but I just can't. Not yet. And… and I'm still not over Pyrrha's death. I thought I would be now but I'm just not." Her sash was still tied tightly around my bicep. It was a dirty, browning thing. The bright red fading to a duller color.

There was silence as we all held each other and swayed slightly on our feet in unison.

"Ruby was right. You do stink. You're not going to make a habit out of smoking, are you?"

"I might. It feels so good. It's like salt. Imagine going the rest of your life without salt on anything else ever again. Only this stuff is salt for the mind. Every experience is all the more intense and I don't need to worry about lung cancer because I'm already dying."

Weiss sighed. "It messes with your usual smell. In a bad way. I'd miss your usual smell."

"Would you now?" I grinned.

"Oh knock it off." She did that thing I loved where she hit me but her hand lingered on my chest.

Ruby reached up with her hands and touched my face. "It'll be hard to kiss you when you're all stinky."

"I suppose I could give it up. If it's for kisses I wouldn't mind. Maybe just as a rare thing, then."

"You really shouldn't do it at all on your meds," Weiss grumbled.

"Yeah well life's not perfect and I feel like I need to abuse substances to get through the day."

"Fine, just as long as it's not every day. I'm not marrying an addict." Then she blushed beat red at what she said.

"Marriage?" I leaned back.

"Keep up." Ruby ordered. "We want you. You want us. Why play games?" She demanded.

"I suppose I could do that. Just so long as you're both ready for when I collapse."

"Gods you're so pessimistic. Just let us all have this moment," Weiss sputtered.

I did.

It was nice.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**


	95. Kadaj I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Saphron POV)

"Cinder is gone. She didn't check in. We should assume big brother and those others got to her," Violet said easily. The death of Cinder didn't seem to bother her at all. And why should it? She wasn't family. She was just an adoptive step sister.

"Good riddance. We didn't need her," Lavender responded back.

"The loss of the maidens is serious, you two. We needed the power," I cut in on them.

"We can get it again, it isn't gone," Lavender shrugged. "Mother has us now. She doesn't need other substitutes. Not anymore."

"I think we all know that it's big brother that's the problem," Violet muttered. "He's powerful and we can't feel him very well."

"Big brother acts like he's not a member of the family," I muttered. "It breaks my heart," I clenched a gloved fist tight at my side near where my dagger hung on my belt opposite to my pistol. The spine of the blade was black and it had double silvery edges sloping to it off of which light gleamed. The pistol was gunmetal grey and shone with polish. They were both well looked after, even for Titania forged instruments.

The pistol was well oiled and sleek. It had a certain comforting weight when held in conjunction with the stacked leather hidden tang handle of the dagger with a straight tapering tip.

It was of course possible to set things up so that both weapons were one and the same. To make it some sort of bayonet. But I preferred the gun and dagger to be separate for different maneuverings. To shoot while I steadied my hand with the life and thrust beneath the gun in a separate fashion. It matched the double-attack nature that was so inherent to my style of offense. I double tapped my enemies. Especially when I had my ghost at my back.

My long red coat completed the cloak and dagger appearance. The red also matched the specter my semblance summoned, at least in part. Red with a black under vestment.

My sisters lingered beside me, Lavender was leaning on her bike and was examining her own weapon. A pistoning gauntlet which could smash through cement with a punch and a flare of the spiked mechanism inside. Violet stood next to me with the double blade she wielded hanging by her belt, curved and nearly down to her ankles, the metal of the blades shone softly silver in the dazzling synthetic Atlesian lights.

The lights overhead created little ponds of yellow hue and the garage was mostly empty. It was the perfect place to stop and chat for a minute and figure out our next move. Or moves as it were.

"What are we going to do about it?" Lavender asked. "He isn't interested in the reunion..." Lavender sniffed.

"Don't cry, Lavender," Violet whispered comfortingly.

"He won't listen to us and he won't listen to Mother," Lavender went on. She wiped the corner of her eyes.

"Plus he is strong…" Violet chipped in. She gave up on comforting Lavender. "He isn't weak for the one that wasn't supposed to work out. I always thought he would be more… feeble. That's always the picture I had of big brother. What about you two?"

It was the image I had of him as well. He hadn't meant to be like _this_. But now that he was he needed to be dealt with. But just how to deal with him? He wasn't going to come quietly.

The low concrete parking garage hung over our heads while we waited and talked. We would need to find a place to stay, either in Atlas or in Mantle but that could be worried about later. It would be easy enough to find some place to squat in or bully our way in to. We did have some money, courtesy of our father, that we could spend on securing an establishment to rest in.

"We're going to remind him that he's a part of this family. Mother can set things straight for us. Have faith in her," I answered.

"But he won't go to the reunion," Violet muttered, her arms folded under her breasts. "He refused."

"So if he won't go to Mother we'll bring Mother to him. Or a part of her at least," I decided.

"You mean a seer..." Lavender trailed. "That could work… Mom could convince him where we have failed."

"He broke free of her once. He didn't bring us the relic of knowledge," Violet pointed out. "What makes you so sure another proxy would do any better? As far as I am concerned he can break free."

It was a valid question and point of concern. He shattered the influence before. There was no reason he couldn't do it again. But there was also no reason that I could see which implied that he could. Once was merely happenstance, it didn't establish a pattern. Jaune's chances of resistance may well be as thin as wet paper. We were all vulnerable to Mother.

"I'm not. Not for certain. And we have to bring the seer to him first," I answered. It wasn't a whole plan, but it was the start of one. He was holed up in the academy.

Mother's influence was a tricky thing to put your finger on. Somehow it was simultaneously subtle, something that you barely noticed, and it was all encompassing, a great portion of your very self. It was easy to imagine, though. It was as though she were a great creature whose flesh my sisters and I were embedded in. We were a part of her. A part of her very body. Our minds were inexorably linked to her own will. We were just fragments of a greater whole. Big brother was no different. He must be in terrible pain from his resistance to our Mom. If only he could see it didn't have to be that way. Our connection to Mother was a beautiful thing, even if it was terrific to behold and understand. But life was like that, all of life, not just our natures.

Glory and madness were different sides of the same coin. And make no mistake, the connection between our minds and Mother's was majestic. If only Jaune could be shown that. If only I could open his eyes and mind to the possibilities. If only I could make him see how things were supposed to be - how they ought to be. He was supposed to be one of us, our big step brother. He belonged to us.

But Jaune was going through the madness of it and the madness only. He was alone. When Mother broke me down I had had my sisters to draw strength from. I had them to share in my suffering before I became whole. Before I was made whole, that is.

Now I couldn't remember a time where I was without it. Big brother must be so lonely. I had my other sisters: Lily, Kolumbine, Juniper, Iris, Lavender, and Violet. He had no one who understood him. Not really. He was becoming a part of a greater whole. His confusion must be awesome. His despair must be majestic.

Instead he saw Mother as something to be fought and resisted. He somehow believed that we would want to be free of her, whatever that might mean. It was impossible. We could never escape ourselves, so we could never be rid of Mother's voice on the surface of our minds.

Her tendrils ran deep inside of us and twisted about until I couldn't be sure where I began and she ended. There was no where. There was nothing. It was a seamless blur of me into her.

And big brother was missing out on that. He didn't understand. Was that on purpose or was it a mistake? Was it just happenstance? He was supposed to be one of us. We didn't care that he was our step-brother. It didn't bother us. And that was only in a technical sense anyways. It hardly mattered. We all were one through our Mother. Even our father didn't get that. He was forever on the outside of things, no matter how much he would like to think otherwise. And he was only loosely our father. Not like our Mother who was certainly our Mom without any question.

Whatever had happened to Jaune, something had gone wrong. It was all misaligned, corkscrewed. He was all mixed up in the head and in the heart. But we could set it right. He could be made whole like the rest of us and once he saw the grandeur of it all he would fall to his knees and weep. He would grovel for forgiveness. He would see. He would understand. He would feel Mother, really feel her. Then he would know. Just as surely as 'I think, therefore, I am' he would know.

"Well are we going to summon one or not?" Lavender asked.

I took a small round ball from inside my jacket pocket and held it aloft to the rest of them. Inside the orb was a swirling mass of black mist and white taloned tipped worms slithering about caught inside the ball of glass. I gazed into it.

All I had to do was shatter the orb and Mother's seer would be summoned. She would be able to talk to us directly and give us direction. She would know how to handle Jaune, our lost brother.

But I didn't crush it. Not yet. It wasn't time. "Once we break into the academy we'll find him and summon it," I decided. It would be easier than trying to bring the fully realized seer into the military fortress. Better to smuggle in the glass ball than the floating mass of tentacles which would be formed from the contents inside of it.

"Breaking into the academy won't be easy…" Lavender trailed.

"We have to. The maidens are in there, certainly. As well as big brother," Violet insisted.

"I know. I was just thinking maybe we should bring our other sisters. If it's for big brother and the maidens they should be a part of this too," Lavender defended her statement. "Reinforcements would be nice to have along with us."

"Don't forget the relic of creation and the relic of knowledge are probably there inside with them," I said, looking into the crystal ball of swirling black smoke. As though to divine the answers I sought from the hazy contents. "Yes… we'll need help from our sisters. And think about how happy big brother will be to see us all. And, with the seer, we'll take the family reunion to him. Then he'll see. Then he'll give this pointless tirade up and become one with us."

"They'll have huntsmen of all sorts. And robots and guards and airships. We'll need to be stealthy. We'll need a distraction too, if possible," Lavender stood up from leaning on her bike. I knew my sister. She was game. Besides it was what we were for. It was what we were ordered to do.

"Like the one that happened at Beacon. Say what you will about Cinder, but she pulled off a hell of a heist. And Atlas is even better defended than Beacon was," Violet agreed.

"There will be the seven of us. And we'll have father's help. And Mother's pets. And our summons." I was still examining the ball, rotating it slowly in the light and watching the contents spill over themselves. "We'll break in and save Jaune. Or Cloud. Or whatever he's calling himself today."

It didn't matter. Why should it? We were still made from our Mother's flesh. We still sprouted from her body like a hydra. What did it matter what Jaune decided his name was. He was an Arc. One of us. Just another head on the same beast. He was a link in the same great chain. He might lie to himself about it. Maybe that was how he got along. But I knew the truth. There was no escaping from this any more than a person could escape from their own thoughts.

A person was their own thoughts. Run from that, I challenge you. Rename yourself whatever. You still were a living thinking person regardless. A droplet of water couldn't stop being a droplet of water by becoming a cloud. And neither could Cloud.

It was dizzying to think of myself as a part of a greater whole but I knew that it is what I am. I was an appendage of a larger organism. I couldn't fight that. Couldn't resist that. It didn't make sense to try. It didn't make sense to _want_ to try. It was something to welcome, not to withstand. It would be like cutting my own fingers off or plucking my own eyes out.

Which, granted, some people have done. But people only do things like that in the throes of madness. I wasn't crazy. Jaune though… Jaune might be. I worried about that. He wasn't made like the rest of us were. There were all sorts of complications which could arise from growing a person. Particularly their mind.

Jaune could be confused but that didn't seem quite right. He had talked about saving me as though I was the one on the outside. He was the one eclipsing himself and cutting himself off from the rest of us. He was the odd one out and not just because he was a guy.

And Jaune didn't have the stability that the rest of us or Mom provided. He had been alone. That was scary. Maybe he had lost it. It would explain a great deal. It would explain why he demanded the crack of the mistress's whip. Maybe he took some kind of sick pleasure in it. He could be the kind of crazy that just liked it. People devote themselves to self harm out of fear and despair all the time. This could just be an avenue for that.

That still seemed like madness to me. Just of a very certain, delicate kind. Maybe that was why we thought of him as the weak one. He was just fragile. His mind made brittle by those processes that had formed him. Maybe he had snapped.

It was a disconcerting thought. It struck me in the chest like I had swallowed glass. Running down my throat and into my stomach where it settled and hung there from my belly like a weight on a thread.

But how to save him from his madness? Mother would know. She was at the center of this whole thing. She was at the center of myself. I just had to trust her. She would see things through for poor big brother.

Or if his madness couldn't be cured… she would do what was necessary.

I didn't like that thought very much. He belonged with the rest of us. He was a piece of us. Without him we weren't whole. That was why we could feel one another. It was even stronger amongst us girls and harder with Jaune but that could be from any number of reasons. He had a different father, for example.

"Poor big brother…" I whispered aloud.

My sisters looked at me in empathy.

"He's hurting," Lavender murmured.

At the same time Violet said, "he's confused."

"I think he might be crazy. How do you fix crazy?" I asked. I looked between their faces. They looked away from me and worriedly at one another.

"Mother may know… she's very wise..." Lavender trailed at last.

"I'm worried that he's too fragile and that he'll try and resist her and she'll just break him on accident."

"Mother is very powerful… it's a possibility. What are you thinking, Saph?"

"I don't know Vi. I'm just worried about him is all. He's… dividing himself from us. You feel it too, don't you. This… separation." A great gulf existed between me and my big brother whereas my sisters and I sort of ran together. Like a river overflowing the tributaries and swallowing the land between them. There were differences between us. Iris here, Lily there. But there were also places that couldn't be named in such a cut and dry way. Places that could only be called a part of the greater whole.

"I don't feel him at all," Lavender spoke sadly.

"Maybe I'm just imagining it but I think I can feel him a little. It's a trickle, a brook where there should be a mighty river. It could just be my mind playing tricks on me. Giving me what I want to see. You know what I mean?" I asked. "You both felt him at the warehouse, right?"

"He was so close then," Lavender muttered hardly moving her lips.

"You felt him more sensitively than either of us, I think." Violet chipped in.

"Maybe… but I'm not sure I felt him first. How is he doing it? Cutting himself off from us?"

"Better question, why is he doing it?" Lavender asked.

"Ozma is with him? On both accounts." Vi tried. But they didn't have any real answers for me.

We'd just have to execute and trust Mom.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	96. Northern Crater I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It happened really fast. In the sort of way some things happen quickly and seem choppy on retrospection. But you know that they must have been smooth because that was how time at least appeared to work.

I was walking with Weiss and the robotic sentries around us suddenly bowed their heads. Their faces flickered a familiar red and they drew their weapons and I, recognizing it with horrible familiarity, drew mine. It gave me flashbacks as things became fluid. I knew in my gut that something was fucked. Just like Beacon all over again.

I crushed the machines as they trained their weapons on us. I just reached out and pulverized the head of one with my left hand as I pulled my broadsword from my shoulder with my right.

Ever vigilant I activated my semblance and become florescent. I swept my weapon in a long slash that bisected two of the machines like butter.

Weiss jumped in surprise and the flare of her eyes flickered to life subconsciously. She went for her own weapon, she too, recalled the red hue of the machines' face masks from Beacon. We were both burdened with terrible memory.

We went hand in hand and ripped through the eight sentries which had trained their weapons on us. Gun shots rang out through the rest of the academy followed by screaming and shouting.

Weiss took off in the direction of the closest screaming, ready to save and serve people. I caught her wrist and she looked back at me, protest in her blue eyes and on her lips as her silvery-white plait swished behind her head, matching the white trimmings of her mostly blue dress.

I shook my head. "They're coming for you. You and Penny both and anybody else who could be a maiden. The relics too. We need to get you to a bunker."

Her lips trembled. Her jaw worked for a moment. "I can't run. I can't do nothing. I'm no coward."

"Keeping you safe keeps the relic of creation safe which keeps the city in the sky. They get you, they get the relic, the city falls, Mother wins. Maybe she wins forever. Across the whole planet." I tried to make her understand. "You're the king in this little game of chess now that they are making their play. You're not the queen."

Weiss had drilled retreating to a bunker in case of emergencies since the death of her sister. Since she became the winter maiden. She knew where to go to keep the power safe from the enemy.

She looked away and chewed her lip in a way that in any other situation would have made me want to kiss her.

A group of robots came around the corner and the first row knelt behind a second and they formed a firing squad. I ripped my shield free of the broadsword and sheltered us both from the hail of oncoming projectiles. Gun roared and traditional bullets pinged off my shield and left marks in the soft grey walls around us.

The visors of the robots glowed crimson as they opened up on us in the empty hallway.

I spent my semblance on a blade-beam which bowled into them and snagged them in the blender of energy that the Limit Break provided. It tore the metal up and slammed their plastic bodies against the walls.

I rushed in on them in a hovering fashion and swung my sword from low to high and cut one in half vertically. Then I stuck my sword and I flew in a tight circle that slammed them back as they tried to get to their fight and cut them limb from limb in a blitzing fashion. Weiss pounced on one, launching herself from a glyph and landing beside me and pierced through its white body with the tip of her rapier. Then she cut down another in a tight well precisioned slash that swept the very top of her blade deep through the white chasis of a machine.

Why now? Who else was involved in the attack. I peeked around a corner and saw no hostile combatants. I pulled Weiss along after me. I just had to hope that whereever Ruby and the others were that they hadn't been caught by surprise. The attack came upon us so suddenly and only my sixth sense had allowed me to fight back quickly. It had strummed through my body like the strings of a guitar with an amp. Ruby sixth sense was good. She would be safe. Especially if these were all the enemy had to bring to bear.

These plastic dolls were no match for hunters like us. Of course there would be more to the attack than this. I felt something. A distant pull. An unmistakable tug through the grey and blue balls of the academy.

My sisters were here. I could detect their presence. I rubbed my face. A headache was coming on. Something not unlike I had felt when I first ran into Saphron, Violet, and Lavender.

"My sisters are behind this," I told Weiss. "And…" I was unsure… " and there are more of them."

"You're sure?" Weiss wondered.

"Yes. I can feel them," I determined. "My Mother is making her play."

The day was growing dark. The sun, which barely crossed the horizon on these winter days, was already dipping back low. The moon was out and pale, I could spot it through tall windows we passed. The shattered visage loomed harsh with a glare. The shadows were long. The artificial lights over our heads were unnaturally white and harsh and did nothing to disguise the sun's betrayal to long winter nights in the far north.

I gleamed a touch of finality with my senses. There were things about to end. Things I would, in time, look back upon and miss sorely and with deep ache.

The academy was suddenly rocked by an explosion. The windows we ran along with shattered inwards along with the columns of grey material and small raptor like drones armed with still more missiles hurtled by as Weiss was knocked flat by the nearby blasts. I hit the far wall from the windows with the flat of my back. I slumped back down to the floor where I sat for a moment just stunned by the discharge.

I stood up and shook glass from my shoulders. I found Weiss kneeling and coughing on dust. I pulled her to her feet. She looked up at me and her pale ice blue eyes met mine. I took in the sight of her long beautiful scar. Her cheeks were marked with grey ash. I had no time to wipe her chin with my thumb like I wanted to.

I heard a swooshing noise that sounded the return of the avian curved drones. I ran with Weiss alongside me.

I stumbled as the building was blasted again. Looking out for black and white went hand in hand with wondering why now. What did my sisters gain by striking at this moment. I stepped out into a hallway deeper in the complex. I detected something to my left. It was my sisters. An ocean which threatened to flood my dikes. Deep and a part of a greater whole. I could feel it.

"Right. You go right," I decided with finality. "My sisters are to the left."

I couldn't let my sisters find what they hoped to get. I could feel them homing in on me like a targeting ballistic. They would get me instead. Not Weiss. But why now? What were they hoping to win? How could I fight them if I didn't even know why?

"What about you? I won't leave you," Weiss protested.

"I'll be fine. I have to fight them."

"All of them?"

"It's my destiny," I returned. "Someone has to stop them. It has to be me."

Weiss gave me a long look like she wanted to argue.

"Go. Find Ruby and your team. You'll-"

Grimm like I'd never seen before with long lizard like tails and pantherine bodies and long alligator faces came racing down the hallway from the left. I slipped my sword into my shield with a smooth motion and rotated my blade and cut straight down vertically into the first one's face. It discharged into grey and black ash. They were on us fast and I swept my blade to the right and cut down the next one before the last leapt onto me with long zygodactylous talons.

Weiss cut it off of me as it's eyeless face bent down low over me and ready to take a deep bite out of me. I floated back to my feet to find five more of the wicked fast things coming rapidly down the hallway.

I cut through the first two with wide horizontal swings of Crocea Mors from one side to the other which also tore up the hallway with the enormous reach of the blade. Then I hovered forward and brought my blade down in an enormous overhead strike that pulverized the next. Then I thrust forward into the next beast. I shot into the air and came down again on the very last in a straight line. I shuffled several floating steps to Weiss.

"You're still here. Go!" I half ordered-half pleaded. I wished to see her safe.

"You're not taking them on alone. I just had to save your butt. So don't try and think you can convince me you're a one man army. You're not."

Several uniforms came around the corner to the right. Aceops and the rest of Team RWBY. All of them. Clover took the lead. The ten of us were together in the long hallway.

"The maiden is secure. Good work. Come with us. We're going to escort you to safety."

I shuddered and turned around. Trying desperately to put my finger on a rapid terrifying caprice.

At the very far end of the long hallway to the left stood Saphron in her red long coat. And she wasn't alone. There was Lavender in blue and Violet in purple. But there were more girls rounding the corner. They were there. All of them. All of my sisters. Little Lily, dressed in matching white. There was Kolumbine in orange. Juniper in yellow matching her hair and lastly Iris in green.

I stared at them all.

"Jaune, oh, Jaune!" Iris called out to me with a wave. "We've come to save you!"

I shuddered again.

Beside me the Aceops raised their weapons with team RWBY. I put a hand to my head. Seeing them all burned me harshly. Saphron strode forward a few steps an d held a small glass ball in one hand. She threw it and Aceops and RWBY all threw themselves to the side.

I stood stock still in motionless horror because out of the mist and slime a monster was emerging. A great opaque bowl for a head took shape below which several tentacles sprouted. It drifted forward towards where I stood motionless.

A voice poured from the orb on top of the horrible thing's head. It was my Mother's voice. As I heard it once, I'd heard it in a hundred nightmares. Maybe more.

**"Ah little Jaune. My darling son… You neglected to bring me the relic of knowledge. You shall regret that..."**

The voice boomed into me despite the hush of it all. The sound rocked me on my feet nearly as much as the missiles had earlier.

My brain and body burned with the zenith of pain a human body can feel. I choked on nothing. My hands grasped at my throat and I thought I might rip my ears off with a minute application of torque. If only to not listen to that voice for a moment longer.

**"You can make it up to me, however. You want to make it up to me, don't you, darling."**

It was like a drill was being forced into both ears and the agony behind my eyes was insurmountable.

I collapsed and leaned my body against the wall of the hallway. I said nothing and stared in transfixed terror. The voice which hounded my nightmares echoed through my skull. It was here. The moment in which my resolve would be tested had arrived. The motion sickness seemed fit to wash me away as I was spun to cyclopean heights in a heartbeat and plummeted back to the earth like a meteor.

I was unprepared. I was so small. And standing across from the monster and my sisters I realized how little I had divorced myself from them. I could feel it inside of me. A growing and malignant tumor I was helpless to fight against.

I was too weak. I was too little too late. How could I resist this? No human could tolerate such pain. It was all just too much. I could feel my sanity sliding through my fingers like quicksilver.

**"Now my boy, won't you kill the winter maiden for me?"**

Her voice was soft like she was asking me to hand her something from the top shelf. It hit me like a tsunami of motion sickness. My stomach lurched and my vision faded and tunneled.

My body turned of its own volition in the direction of Weiss.

**"There's a good boy. Kill her."**

With a shaking hand I raised my sword. My throat burned and tears poured from eyes to the point I could hardly see through them. It hurt so badly in every cell of my body.

"Jaune don't listen!" Ruby shouted. I tried to avail myself of Ruby's charms but it was all so dizzying. There was an overwhelming desire to fall into harmonium with the voice.

I trembled with my weapon raised. My whole body was wracked with a horrible shaking as I tried to resist my own corporeal form turned against me. My mind had become my traitor.

How could I fight this? This force which turned me into a doll. I was a plastic manikin as much as any of Atlas's toys. I was nothing. I breathed deeply but it was like inhaling ink black waters as I was pulled under the surface by dark gripping tentacles which wrapped around my legs and yanked me down with unbelievable force. I choked.

I was drowning. My face was growing flushed and I couldn't exhale. I took a step towards Weiss and it was like inhaling a fresh whiff of air after minutes of being under deep water. The relief that filled me was undeniable as I moved to carry out the will that was not my own. But why shouldn't it be my own?

I looked at myself and felt my body entrenched in a web of flesh that did not belong to me. I felt myself as a membranous appendage of a much greater whole. Rather it was that I belonged to it. I was little more than a tributary of a vast ocean. I was embedded, my whole body and mind, inside of an alien form. It was like I was stuck on flypaper. Except I was _made_ out of the flypaper too. I was made out of it! I was made out of it. I was made out of it. My form was the ink I was drowning inside of. It was me. I looked inside of myself and felt only me.

It annoyed me to feel on my back frightful glances. They cooked my body and sear my mind like a hot skillet. Why can't they all shut up? Ace ops and team RWBY both. And my sisters down the long hallway, their gaze penetrates me like that of a basilisk. I am stone. And I lose the form of a man and become like a dog. I stand unmoving yet I crawl on all fours. I bow my head subserviently and wag my tail happily under my master's attention with a steady _thump thump thump_. I want to tear it off with my teeth. I was tired.

The walls between myself and my Mother and sisters died down and vanished. Soon I felt a blurring of myself as my ego died and there was only the greater whole. What was I becoming? What was I already? How could I be? Just a member of a larger monster whose very flesh I was trapped screaming inside of.

There was a dying light as I began to fade and the agony drained from my body. Giving in felt so right. It felt so natural. What else could there be? Something shrieked deep in my soul as I slowly became.

I was made from monstrous flesh. Black ichor flowed through my veins. Could I deny my nature? Could I deny my nurture? Could I resist what I already was? The shrieking grew louder.

My own thoughts betrayed me and terrified me as I examined myself and felt a warm comforting presence wash away the pain and like a dog being stroked I leaned into the touch of the gentle goddess. The motion sickness eased slightly And my vision came to buoyancy. I was simultaneously aroused and sickened by my own actions as I leaned affectionately into the greater desire. I shivered in revolution and disgust as I felt a need to pur in pleasure. I craned my neck so that I could be scratched behind the ears like a house cat. Barely more than a rat was I. I wanted to throw up from the disgust I felt at the pleasure which coursed through me and wiped the pain clean from me.

I knew what was happening to me. I was being conditioned like a dog with a bell. But that didn't make it easy to fight. My thoughts turned traitorous and demanded that I give in. It would be so easy to give in. There would be none of that usual pain which came from my revolts against the dark mistress.

Vertigo pulsed in my head and I had no idea what to do. My means of resisting were crumbling as my very sense of self died. Taking my willpower with it. What was I left with when all that was gone? There was only Mother and her will. There was only her power. There was only that great monster which I was a fragment of.

"Kill him," Clover ordered after I stepped forward. "He's turning on us." He whipped his body forward with his fishing rod weapon.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	97. Northern Crater II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Stay!" Marrow pointed his fingers at me while I was mid leap at Weiss dressed in white and blue. I saw the white and blue but the words for the colors deflated. I saw Ruby dressed in crimson and black. The colors became an obscure thing. Sight was an abstract. It was just another one of man's inventions. Color and sight were an absurdity.

As I tried to hold onto them they gave way to a deep transparent uneasiness. Try and hold a color in your hands and watch it slip through your fingers. A circle is not absurd. It's the locus of points equidistant from a middle point. But a circle isn't real. Colors were. They were absurd. But try to grasp a color as tightly as you could and become a futility.

This moment was extraordinary. I hung motionless yet plunged horribly into motion sickness. The vertigo of my sudden stop was overwhelming, frightfully so. My hands were frigid as I was dropped into horrible ecstasy. I could move only my crying eyes and take in those appearances of my friends.

The shock. The betrayal. It shamed me. It stamped across their faces. The shame was real. It wasn't absurd. I was turning on them again. Agony traced it's gentle hand through my body. Like the caress of a lover it touched the bones of my spine.

I pushed desperately against it but I may as well have been pushing a cliff face. It was more likely that I'd be able to pick up the whole academy and carry it on my back than to be able to resist this.

It was inside of me. I was becoming.

I saw revelation in Ruby and Weiss's eyes as they realized. I became realized, too. I understood the motion sickness. I possessed it. I was rushed from place to place by a swift hand on the small of my back, pushing me.

I was blurred right down the line. I saw Weiss. I had to obey. I had to kill her. I think therefore you are. You are, Mother.

What was freedom?

This place was free. The people before me were free. But I was a remnant of something subversive and black with ooze. I was fascinated by own condition. I think therefore Mother is. Something was listening in on my thoughts. It was hearing me think and suddenly I was afraid of my own thoughts which were at this moment betraying me. And in my heart I was superfluous, amorphous, vague, and sad.

I could feel myself breaking the things I had built up here and I couldn't stop myself. I shattered and became sharply edged with many faucets like some horrible crystal. I would like to tear myself from this atrocious joy but I didn't think that it was possible. Not for me. This was it. I was doomed. My mind was compromised.

At what cost did I lift my eyes and see the incredulity on Yang's face. Blake was firm with resignation, she had seen this coming. Well done, Blake. Ruby's sharp tears lacerated my body and the fear in Weiss's eyes stung me like a thousand hornets.

My hopes were swept away and I grasped at my dreams like a blind man. This wasn't something that could be imagined and fought. It seized one suddenly like the tide and washed one out to a deep dark sea under which no shattered moon shone and no light touched.

Would that I could forget. My soul for a minute of forgetfulness. I didn't want to exist but I couldn't help myself. I was thinking. I was being. And the thing I was being was a monster. I was revolting. But the water was fine.

What were they to me? Weiss and Ruby and the others. Were they more or less than little flashes of pink sunlight on a cold blue sea.

**"Help your brother, my little darling pets."**

I tremored into the voice from behind me.

I heard the retort of a familiar weapon and Marrow flinched. Saphron shot Marrow who was pointing at me and I could move again, just in time to dodge a fishing line which sought to entangle me.

Unshaking I swept my sword in a tight arc before me. Harriet Bree stepped into my guard with her mechanical exoskeleton in a blur of yellow lightning and punched me in the face. I stumbled back. There was a purple flash of electricity which rushed past me and Violet tackled her. Harriet rolled to her feet to match Violet. They stared at each other for a moment, then the two speedsters took off in flashes of yellow and purple down the hallway to the left of me which Weiss and I had come down.

Saphron landed next to me and did a slicing flip at Clover with her long dagger. Shots whizzed past me from my other sisters as well. Then Iris rushed past me with a ball and chain spinning over her head and she engaged Elm, sidestepping that hammer and whacking her using the spiked ball with a flick of her wrist.

Lily blitzed past me and began to fight Vine. She fired a machine gun at him that transformed into a long hatchet. Lavender paired off with Narrow but she kept switching with Saphron whenever Marrow would pause her. The two kept acrobatically flipping between Clover and Marrow and keeping them ever on their guard.

The twins, Juniper and Kolumbine stopped shooting and ran up to Yang and Blake.

For my part I swung my weapon at Weiss and Ruby blocked it. The deja vu was sickening. I couldn't help but to think of Nora and Ren as my actions spiraled out of my control.

"Cloud!" Ruby shouted in my face. I had to listen. I was a prisoner in my own body. I had no choice but to hear her words and see her face fall into a glorious despair. Her lips turned in anguish, her eyes wide, her brow furrowed in focus. I saw it all as I brought my weapon down on her small body. I had to see it. I had to bear witness to her agony.

My own face contorted. She took a swing at me but it was timid and experimental. Even more so than back in Anima where we spared and she was concerned about breaking me. Those were good times. They hurt to remember.

I batted her heavy scythe to the side with my hundred pound weapon which weighed as much as she did or more. Weiss darted forward I could see the consternation and focus on her face as she stepped up and jabbed at me with Myrtenaster. She meant it more than Ruby did but she was still pulling her punches by a wide margin. I was going to do it. I was going to kill them both.

"Stop me," I pressed my weapon down on Weiss. It came out as an agonized hiss. There was a slight half mad contest to my words. Like I was threatening her and challenging her at the same time. I wasn't sure which side I was on. Just that it wasn't theirs. "Free me from this. Let me die," I begged my voice still low. "Kill me. You must. Don't let me hurt you. Please don't let me hurt you. Stop me."

Weiss shook her head and tried to push me off of her. Ruby slammed her whole body weight into me feet first at high speed, enough so that I was sent stumbling back. She swiped at me with Crescent Rose and clipped my legs out from underneath me but I just hovered and hit her with the long blade like a bolt of lightning. She was rocked down the crowded hallway.

I stood and dropped my hands one over the other and held my sword out from my waist. A tentacle set itself gently on my shoulder. A little reminder. A push to go over. A friendly caress.

**"You're doing well… kill the winter maiden. Take your place by my side, child."**

I quivered at the kindly touch. I nearly convulsed at the grotesqueness that it inspired in me. It was all too much.

I charged at Weiss and just before I brought my weapon down on her I made myself pause. I gave resistance to the devil inside of me for a half second and Weiss managed to block my weakened strike and ripost right into my face with the tip of her rapier. She looked on in trepidation at what she had done.

"That's right," I encouraged. "Please don't let me be this thing. Not again. Please." I babbled like a maniac because it was all I could do. Even that sapped strength from me to resist her alien will. Reviled, I revolted as well as I was able.

She looked on in abhorrence. It twisted the beautiful scar on her face into something awful. I think she could tell how much pain I was in because she was crying. Tears streamed down her wonderful face from her crystal ice blue eyes. Her cheeks were flushed red but that could have been from the exertion of our fight. Her eyes flared with the power of the maiden. A glyph opened behind her and a storm of icicles rained down on me.

I tried not to block. I resisted the urge to shield myself and dance into her range and hit her with all the force I could muster behind my gigantic broadsword. I managed to take some on the face, weaved in, and hit her like a truck instead.

In conjunction with her partner, Ruby hit me with two fifty caliber bullets. Then when I swung at her she disappeared in place, reappeared, then hit me with three rapid spins of Crescent Rose all of which tore into my aura like a blender.

I went to swing at her but I mustered my strength at the last minute and held back. It allowed her another quick four free shots while Weiss slowly got back to her feet. Weiss let the revolver on her blade rotate and cast a wave of fire straight at me and I shielded behind my sword as the flames broke over me.

I might be able to beat either one alone, but together they could take me. They had a real shot at this. I just had to hope and pray to whatever gods were listening that they would have the strength enough to do it.

I would rather die than hurt the ones I loved. Only this thing that had crawled inside of me and wore me like a suit didn't care about my wishes or dreams. All I could do was scream as I was puppetted and it floated behind my face and eyes.

Inside of me. It was inside of me just under the surface of my skin. It made me want to cut myself. My fingers itched and the overwhelming desire to hurt myself grew stronger. I was jumping out of my skin while still being trapped inside of it. I felt like I was armor somebody else was wearing. I felt like there was a stranger's face just behind my own donning my visage like a mask. I wanted to peel my eyes out with my fingernails.

I wanted it to stop.

For the love all gods listening I just wanted it to stop. Even if that meant dying. Especially if that meant dying. And I was sorry to put this on them but I wanted my girlfriends to do it. In their hands, they had to understand, I didn't want to take the long way around.

"Just hang in there Cloud!"

I was in such agony. How could some people so empathetic not get what I needed from them. I needed to die. I needed to tear the flesh from my face and reveal that thing beneath of me buried under the surface. If they saw that, they would be repulsed and know what I had been all along. They would know I had been telling them the truth about what I really was and they would kill me without hesitation because they were hunters and I was a monster.

I wish that I could go back to before I knew I was this thing. To the halcyon days at Beacon when I was crushing on Weiss or out camping with Ruby in the middle of the forest. Back then I was so blissfully unaware.

I swung at Ruby with a mighty _clang_. She struggled against me.

Could they deliver? Now in the time when I needed them. They wanted me to live but that was impossible for me. I was a mad dog.

Late nights spent between the three of us poured all through my body like a mighty river. But it didn't provide me the strength to break free. It was serious but I just started laughing. It was high and crazed to my own ears and touched with sadness. Late at night we were never going to work out quite right. Oh, what a dream that had been!

The motion sickness was offensive as I attacked with heavy great swings of my broadsword. I grabbed Ruby by the throat and threw her mightily into a wall. She landed neatly on her feet and came swinging at me with her scythe. She was one of the few that actually outranged even me but my weapon was heavier. Weiss's weapon was the smallest and most sprightly and she kept trying to step into my range and cut me with the tip while Ruby countered me from further away.

Whenever I tried to get in on Ruby she would vanish and shoot me, taking no risks. And Everytime I'd try and bring it to Weiss and whale on her, Weiss would step inside where my momentum was countered and Ruby would support her.

They worked well together.

They'd be fine without me.

I had to behold Ruby crying as she fought. I felt like I was seven hundred miles away from them despite that I was meters away.

It was then that I knew the unfairness and cruelty of the gods. So close yet so far away. Impossibly far away. I had all this strength and no freedom. The irony was palpable. My torture was roundabout as well as direct. It was twofold. I was a captive and I knew I was a captive.

Detained in my own flesh prison, I cursed the gods and my Mother and everyone else just for good measure. There was no way out except death. A final and insurmountable sleep. No more kisses, no more sadness, no more mercy. I craved it. It was the only fate I could hope for which would allow me to escape this pain.

Weiss stabbed me in the stomach then darted away again. My semblance activated and the blue flames coalesced around my body. Strength surged through alien muscles. My manikin's body became stronger.

I hesitated.

I was wracked with agony like a dozen lacerations for not moving forward. A step forward and I would be rewarded with everything. But I refused and once more I couldn't breath. And still I hesitated. Ruby knocked me down the hallway. I didn't get up. I didn't breath. I was still as a statue wreathed in pain.

**"Get up. Go. Go!"**

The monster's voice hissed at me. But I didn't move. Soon my world pulsed between black and white as I still refused to so much as breath. If I was going to die then so be it. Let me choke on nothing to spite my Mother! I felt my face turning blue. The motion sickness roared through me and I almost vomited.

I revolted with all the strength in my soul and mind and my body. I thought of the pink sun setting on Atlas. Let me set too. And let the setting of my soul be pink as well.

Things alternated between black and white faster and faster until white went everywhere and I faded to black.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	98. Northern Crater III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I woke up in the pristine academy infirmary. Soft blue light echoed in through tall windows onto the rows of beds. I wasn't alone. There were other hunters injured and occupying some of the beds. Flynt Coal I recognized two beds down.

But in terms of consciousness I was alone. Or as alone as I ever was with Mother in my head. I sat up and held my face in my hands. I rubbed hard at my scalp. If there had been something sharp nearby I'm not sure I would have been able to resist the urge to use it on myself in an act of rebellion against my Mother, against fate, and against life.

I reclined back down into the bed. I wasn't injured anywhere physically but I was burdened with the terrific scars of memory. I had attacked my friends. I would have killed Weiss by _her_ orders and murdered Ruby just for getting in the way. What was the point of all the training and focus I did if Mother could just sweep it aside with a word from one of her proxy monsters.

What was I good for other than to die?

Suicide seemed to be my best option. It seemed like the best means of rebelling against my monstrous nature. It seemed like the only way I could strike back at Mother and deprive her of a tool from her selection.

I wanted to kill myself. Painfully, if possible.

But more than that the words of Qrow echoed in my ears. _Do the right thing. _He had told me to do the right thing and I didn't listen. I should have. Was the right thing suicide? Should I put a permanent stop to me before I hurt anyone else?

I cursed my father and my Mother. They plagued me with indecision and despair. My Mother had made me a puppet again. Or tried to and nearly succeeded. In her hands I was a lifeless doll so I may as well become lifeless. If I was to be evil and know that that is wrong, the only course of good action would be to cut my head off at the source and eliminate myself.

I looked inside of myself. I could feel Salem like a tide which threatened to break my levies and flood me.

I lay in the bed in the blue morning light and I felt like a sick dog. Grey and white walls surrounded me, they seemed to press inwards despite the open space and I got a sense of motion sickness as I sat still in bed. My stomach did flops in my chest and I could feel my heartbeat in my brain.

For a long time it was all I could hear. A steady and loud _thump-thump_ in my ears and behind my eyes. I just listened to it and the rise and fall of my breathing. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted some real quiet but the sound in my chest was deafening. My forehead pulsed in the rhythm of the double _thuds. _

I couldn't stand it. I desired nothing more than to put a stop to it and gain some peace of mind. Peace of mind for all of ten seconds before I slipped away was what I craved.

But I remembered poor Ruby and Weiss. I had a certain measure of responsibility to them, the living. The people that I loved. It would shatter them if I took my own life, but this was about them. This was about keeping them safe, even from me. I could have killed them like I had Ren and Nora. I still didn't know for sure if they were safe. Anything could have happened with the fight against my sisters. All of my sisters had shown up and brought the reunion to me.

Then I would have lost them and gone mad like Dyne had. If I wasn't mad already. But suicide didn't seem like madness to me. It seemed perfectly logical. If I was a toy for my Mother's evil, wasn't it good for me to destroy myself completely and ultimately? It was a serious question. It deserved a serious answer. That made suicide not just a mercy on my poor mind, body, and soul, but a moral imperative.

Soft tears leaked from my wet eyes. But I grimaced and smiled. I wiped the lone tears from the corners of my face before they could roll down my cheeks.

I was thinking of saying goodbye. One way or another Qrow was right and I couldn't be here, even if I were to live. Not around the maidens and relics. Not around Ruby and her silver eyes. The best thing I could do next to killing myself was to at least get the fuck out of the way of the people who could fight Salem.

I mustered my courage and I broke my own heart which pumped unforgivingly in my chest. It was an unmerciful ungrateful sound.

It arhythmicly robbed me of my duty. I knew what the next thing that I had to do was. I just needed the strength to do it. It was just like Qrow had warned me. I just didn't listen. I had to be around them. I needed them. Now they needed me to leave.

And I… I had to find out more about myself. I needed to learn more about my father and the nature of my connection to my Mother. This… vacation was over. If I was going to keep on living I had to focus up and quit slacking around and feeling sorry for myself and the things that I couldn't have.

Those things included Ruby and Weiss. But they also included anything other than living as a fugitive. On the lamb from my Mother, that was where I had to be. I had to be in constant revolt with her or die. Those were my options.

It was time to muscle up and accept the responsibilities put on my shoulders as well as the limits destiny had put on me. I wiped my face with the course, low thread count, military sheets. The way they burned roughly against my cheeks was nice.

It was time to leave Atlas and Mantle behind. But Weiss… Weiss had to stay and master the power of the maiden and Ruby had to learn how to use the power of her eyes.

Fate was splitting us apart but it was the right thing to do. It was the right call. Qrow would be pleased with my decision. I wouldn't bother to ask Ironwood. I owed him nothing and I had served my time by killing Cinder and delivering him two maidens in Penny.

Saying goodbye would hurt. It would be like tearing my own heart out but what else was new? Neo could come along. I was sure she would. I would find my father's other laboratories and track him down and finally grant him justice for the horrors he put me through.

And I would rebel against my Mother. I could do that by staying alive and harrying her attempts at everything. I could be a constant thorn in her side. I just couldn't fight her directly. I saw that now.

But saying goodbye, perhaps goodbye forever… that torched me. It hurt nearly as bad as being possessed by Mother did. It was a deep pain in my chest that ached and throbbed in time with my still too loud heartbeat. Gods! It was so loud! Could it just die down for a minute? Half a minute? Ten seconds. _Thump-thump thump-thump. _So loud in the softly lit infirmary. The artificial lights were so harsh in the Atlesian way and for the love of the gods I just wanted peace of mind for ten godsdamned seconds!

But it never came. My heart never stopped it's infuriating pulse and my breathing, slow and steady, whistled to my hearing. And somewhere deep inside me Mother lurked like giant squid. Deep in dark waters where only nightmare creatures dwelt, she hung in the ink, a swirling mass of tentacles and protrusions with a hundred eyes and dozens of mouths. Ever waiting. Patient. She'd get me again. There was a constant low whisper urging me to give in and come like a dog. Here boy. Come to Momma. Come to Momma and it will all be better, you'll see. Don't you trust me?

I didn't. I didn't trust that alien mass. It could hardly be called a foreigner to my mind because she had always been there lurking below the surface. All my training hadn't allowed me to hold off her control of my body. I still remembered hitting Weiss with my sword like the hammer of a god. It replayed over and over in my mind and made me flinch and cringe. How was I supposed to look her in the eyes after that? How was I supposed to make love to her after that? With Ruby? With anyone with this remote entitiy in my mind?

The gods were crueler than I had previously imagined. Unbelievably so. It was like they wanted me to kill myself. They wanted me to suffer. And I was suffering like no man had ever suffered. Being awake was agony but sleep was even worse. And all of that just to say goodbye to my friends and loved ones. Die or leave. Those were my choices. And I knew that leaving would hurt all the more than a quick death.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Cloud? Are you awake?" I opened my eyes to meet Ruby's soft silver gaze. Her hair was parted wolfishly and she looked as beautiful as always, like a little angel.

I stared up at her and just drank in the sight like it was the last time I'd ever get to do so. I drank like a man dying of thirst.

"Rubes…" I croaked. "Are you okay? And Weiss? Is she hurt? What happened?"

"I'm here. I'm alright." Weiss leaned into my view. She too was angelic with her long white hair and icy eyes.

"I'm fine." Ruby went on. "After you passed out we overwhelmed your sisters and forced them to flee. Weiss is fine. Everyone is safe. Vine died, though."

I exhaled hard. I had to tell them.

"I have a choice to make," I told them.

"If its about what happened we don't blame you. We saw the pain you were in," Weiss continued.

"I have a choice to make," I repeated, unheeding her. "I can't be around you. The maidens. Or the silver eyes warriors. Or even the relics. I have to kill myself-"

"No you don't! You don't have to do anything like that! Think about us! Think about how much you'll hurt the ones that love you and care about you. Don't we matter to you?" Ruby implored.

"You mean everything to me," I croaked. "But I can't overcome my Mother directly. The only way to resist and rebel against my evil nature is to destroy myself and deprive her of a tool against the forces of good. Or…" I trailed.

"Or?" Weiss wondered. "Or what?"

"Or I leave. I can't be around the maidens, relics, or Ruby. That means I need to leave. Maybe I can still do good but there's too much risk in being around you. Both of you," I finished.

They exchanged a mournful look. "Where will you go?" Weiss asked me.

I shrugged. "To find and kill my father. Maybe. That's some good I can do. Stop him from making more of me and continuing his experiemnts on the Grimm. I can slay monsters and save people. But I can't be involved in the fight against Salem. I can't be a part of the war against her. One way or another. I can't be a part of either of your lives. It's too dangerous. I'm too much of a risk. There is too much of my Mother in me and I'm scared. I'm scared of losing myself and hurting the people I care about because she can control me."

"You can't live separated from everyone who cares about you? That's no way to live," Ruby protested.

"I killed Ren and Nora. I tried to kill Weiss. You can't trust me. You can't forgive me."

"Well we do!" Weiss exclaimed. "You were holding back. You didn't try and hurt me in earnest. You were resisting her, I still trust you."

"Well you shouldn't and my mind's made up. You two are a part of the war against my Mother. I can't be. That's it. That's the end of the story. I'm leaving Atlas. Probably heading back to Anima."

"Just promise me you won't kill yourself! Promise me we'll see each other again!" Ruby was sobbing. She was looking at me pleadingly with her eyes wide like plates. I couldn't look at her. And I couldn't promise her either one of those things.

I stayed silent. I could promise her nothing. So I wouldn't. I might decide the safest option was suicide. I might decide the merciful portion was suicide. I could vow to keep myself safe not at all. She deserved to know that after all she had done looking after my disgraceful self.

Ruby's lips trembled horribly. It was heartbreaking to look at but I forced myself to meet her gaze. I had to. I had to be honest with her. For who else could I truly be honest with? Not myself. I was a liar and I was twisted and there were sharks in the waters of my subconscious.

"Look after yourself," Weiss demanded, she was holding back tears of her own. Her celestial otherworldly face was shining with pink cheeks next to that thin beautiful scar. Just under the surface was a well of sadness. "And… and you can write us letters. Please? We won't be leaving Atlas any time soon so you can find us here and we'll try and write back to you if you keep us in contact about where you're going. Stay in touch with us? Won't you please?" She said with so much love and sorrow that I couldn't help it. It was an intolerable toll she took out of me.

I agreed.

It sounded almost like fun. I would write to them. Both of them. I could communicate I just couldn't be with them or be a part of their lives anymore. I had to take Qrow's advice and separate myself from the people I cared about. Unless I found a weapon against Salem's influence over me, distance between us would be my best ally. And I would look desperately for a means to stave her off of my mind. Because then I could be with Weiss and Ruby again. That would mean the world to me.

I hoped that they would get along. I hoped that they would be happy together and learn to live without me. That would be for the best. Because we had tried. I had tried to live with them and be with them but Salem had still worked her way in and made me hurt the people that I cared about. She did it again. And I just couldn't trust myself. I was too powerful now. Measures had to be put in place to keep me in check in the war against my Mother. This is what that had come to.

I had to do the right thing.

Fucking Qrow Branwen and his damn wisdom. If only I'd listened sooner. I could have avoided striking my loved ones with my weapon and just maybe I could have avoided the loud thudding in my ears. Saying goodbye hurt. It did. A lot. Like cutting my heart out while my stomach did flip flops. But it did not hurt half as much as hurting them had done. That had been real agony. So with that in mind, compared to that, this was easy. It was cruelly easy.

I hugged Ruby and she kissed my cheek feverishly. "I'll always love you," she told me at a whisper. It was like I was drowning a cat to tell her I had to leave. It was that or die and perhaps to die anyways. And of course to die anyways.

Soon it would just be a memory of these two divine woman who loved me. Soon it would be a fleck of pink paint in my past over which a halo hung. I did not feel alone yet since the past loomed over me. But I would. And I would have to bear it. How much, in the strongest of my terrors, my disgusts, I had counted on them to save me. Nothing can save me. I look inside myself and see just me. Only me. My dreams of understanding crumbled and the after that a long succession of days of self imposed and well deserved exile.

She stepped back and I barely heard Weiss whisper "dolt, we won't give up on you," with so much affection it ached me and brought tears to my eyes. There is little to say. It's a lost game. The motion sickness has given me a brief breathing spell but it shall return. I heard the truth in Weiss's words all the same.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	99. The Way Lies Here I

**This starts the next arc and is where things get a little risky. You'll see what I mean. Thank you to everyone who has made it this far. Three hundred thousand words and counting and daily updates. Your comments and reviews are all so glorious. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was heartbreakingly easy to leave them behind and set off for Sanus. If my father stuck to his patterns there would be a lab there near Vale, maybe even a fourth near Vacuo. I was going home. At least in part. I could never truly return but I was going to the place I had stayed the longest in all my waking life, asleep in a vat didn't count. That wasn't home.

But was Vale home if I wasn't going to Beacon? That's where I resided. The school was where I had lived. Not down in the city. I wonder how they were rebuilding. Communication would soon be up and running between the kingdoms again so I supposed I'd find out sometime between then and now.

I could return, it would seem. But I could never go back. And would I be going back at all if it was without my friends and loved ones? Without Pyrrha, Weiss, or Ruby? It didn't feel like I was going back, just that I was leaving. My responsibilities forcing me to resign and run away like a coward.

I tried to temper myself with reminders that I would stay in touch and that it would only be temporary. It wasn't like last time. But the motion sickness gripped me in its tight clutches. I wasn't free. I was not my own man despite all my responsibilities. Anxiety rushed me and gave me a sense of vertigo as I waded through my past, present, and future.

Neo and I met up in Atlas, the city built into the rock with jagged towers of smooth glass. It was brilliant in the pink morning sun. She gave me a pretty wave and I gave her a tight but unflinching smile.

"I'm headed to Vale. Back to my home. I think my father will have another lab out near there. It's my job to find it. You wanna come?"

She leaned her umbrella against her shoulder and put a forefinger to her chin. She nodded.

"Great. Fantastic," it came out a touch melancholic. She must have heard it in my voice because she frowned curiously up at me.

'Whats eating you?' I heard.

"It's nothing. I'm tired," I tried.

She stamped her foot. 'Bullshit.' She could tell something was off with me. She knew me that well at least. She probably knew me almost better than anyone who hadn't been at Beacon. Hell, she was my first non-Beacon friend.

"Fine. I'm tired of leaving my friends and lovers behind and I only just started. I'm tired of fighting my Mother's presence. Her voice is always in my head. She nags at me all the time. She's such a bitch. But I have a responsibility to keep them safe and to shut down my father and probably to kill him, so that's a thing," I complained freely to my friend. I was allowed. "Anyways none of that is the point. We better get going before Ironwood finds out I'm going AWOL and abandoning my parole. He seems like a stickler for the rules. Plus you shouldn't be seen in broad daylight, should you?" She shifted into her disguise soundlessly and without complaint, the one I affectionately called Mint.

"Good. Just a couple of things and then we'll be off. I need marijuana and new paraphernalia. I'm not going to be able to get prescriptions for my antipsychotics while I'm on the road. Besides, THC and CBD work better anyways. Let me call Aurum."

We walked through the city streets together as I pulled out my scroll and the several story high houses seemed to press in on me with their blues, greys, and whites. They leaned over me judgmentally. I felt like prey. I felt small. I was small, of course. They leaned in on me and the people I passed on the street nodded about to one another in greeting. I maintained my morose silence and composure and pushed through.

"Aurum speaking. Is that you Cloud?"

The streets were regularly swept and clean and the light posts were turned off so the sun stretched beams of light unabated through the clear morning without anything artificial to block it. The city was beautiful. I could readily confess that. It was just a shame about it's hunchbacked twin they kept in the basement.

"It's me," I replied.

"Did you finally get that bitch and her friend?" Aurum asked. "I'm thinking you must have because all has been quiet on that front."

"I finally did, but I didn't get her friend," I agreed. I still didn't feel the roar of that victory in my head and in my heart. Instead I still felt strangely empty where rhapsodic joy and trumpeting vindication should have been. I felt nothing. Where was the pride in my hard fought vendetta turned to real action? I vacillated between nothingness and despair. I still had so much work ahead of me. Especially if I ever wanted to see my friends and lovers again. I had a lot to live up to in terms of Pyrrha's dreams for me as well. She would never have wanted this for me. She wouldn't have wanted any of this for me. I could only imagine her looking at me with pity in heart at the thing I had become and what I must do.

Watching over me, she must have been horrified a little, too. But I hope, just maybe, I had done her a little proud. I was a real hunter now. One of the strongest on the planet's ugly face. Would she be pleased with how far I had come?

"That's fantastic news. Her little friend was a small fry anyways. Sometimes they slip through the net. Say, I've got a bar down in Mantle. You should come celebrate with me. I rather insist, in fact."

"No can do. I'm leaving town. I do need something from you before I go, though."

"And what's that?"

"Drugs. THC and CBD. I'm willing to pay for it too."

"No, you my friend get it on the house. It's the least I can do for you and all you saved this city's underbelly from. Cinder Fall burned two of my most loyal men to death. I couldn't let that stand. She just burnt them right up in a pillar of flames."

"Hey, she burnt my friend up too," I muttered sadly.

"There a story to that?" He asked.

"That's pretty much it. She turned her to ashes. Wrong place, wrong time but she had to be there, I suppose."

"I don't quite know what you mean," Aurum's voice came clear through the speaker.

I sighed loud enough that I'm sure the microphone picked up on it. "I mean she could have run the fuck away. But she didn't. And the result would have been the same except she would have lived. I blame her for that sometimes. I wish she would have run away."

"It sure as shit saved my ass at the Den. Running. Sometimes that's what it takes and it's all you can do. Come down to my club. We'll chat in person and say goodbyes." He gave me an address. "Capisce? Chao."

"Bye," I cut the connection with a tap of my finger on the scroll that used to belong to Don Corneo. It had been a long time since then. I… I'd really gone on a tear. Murdering because I felt like it. Hurting people just because I could and they couldn't stop me. I was ashamed of that. I was ashamed of what Pyrrha might have seen me become as she watched over me. I was afraid of how far I had fallen, I could fall that far again. This time would be different. None of that indiscriminate torture and mayham. I'd be neat and tidy. I might still kill but I wouldn't find sadistic joy in it. That was my choice.

Or was it? We didn't choose the things we're afraid of. Do we get to choose what makes us happy? I didn't like what I thought were the answers to those questions. It implied that the things that scare us and make us happy aren't a part of us but they do control us. That scared me.

Neo was giving me a penetrating look and hoping to catch my eye. Something in my conversation with Aurum had piqued her curiosity or otherwise caught her attention. I didn't give eye contact to her deliberately. I refused. Instead I hopped in a gondola down to Mantle with a dozen other passengers. The grimy city beneath the other city. Good riddance to bad rubbish. All the smoke, and ash, and dust choked the place up and the floating city above stopped it from floating freely away. It choked on it. The mining operations corroded it. Smothered.

What a depressing shit hole. I felt strangely at home what with the uneasy feeling in my gut. I was doing the right thing. I felt strongly about that. I couldn't fight my Mother but that didn't mean that there was no good I could do.

I had to cling to that and hope and pray I had enough free will to do it. I had to hope I wasn't just a puppet and that all my emotions were real. I had to hope that there was more to a person than nature or nurture. It was in my nature to be a monster. And an alien goddess was nurturing my subconscious like plastic into what she wanted me to be. I had to hope for more. I had to hope for something beyond that or I would never hold Ruby or Weiss in my arms ever again. But what else was there? It seemed like a riddle with no answer.

I was pretty sure that I was just fucked. Cut clean and hung out to dry.

Neo tapped my shoulder. She had to reach way up to do it.

"What's up?" I asked her.

She gave me a mournful look. Her brow raised and her eyes suddenly mismatched and were wide. I saw myself in them like a bronze mirror. Polished in brown and pink.

"I don't know what you're asking me. Give me something a little more. Is it my bike? I decided to leave it here. Can't fit it in the airship and it was just temporary anyways. But then again what isn't?"

She shook her head and pointed at me. 'No, that.'

"That? I'm depressed. I'm leaving my loved ones behind. I've got to, though. And it's depressingly easy. It's so fucking easy that I'm scared that none of my emotions are really real. I'm worried that it's all fake pressure from my Mother somehow. I'm so fucking scared. Maybe that's just me, though. Maybe I'm just the sort of person that's scared all the time. Maybe that's the human condition, too. Being scared. Existential dread. Maybe that's everybody and everything. Maybe everyone is scared and there is a horrible scream coursing through nature. The Grimm are certainly enough evidence for how bad things can get - at how bad things really are. Not to mention the whole world hates Atlas now. There's so much to do and so little I can do to help because of the limits I have to put on myself. That's what's bothering me. All of that. Got any advice."

She stared at me for a long time. She blinked and her eyes swapped colors. Then she shook her head slowly and minutely.

"I thought so. Not to blame you or anything. I'm just this side of 'too fucked.'"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Aurum's secondary place was a low purple brick building with a small parking lot out front with a few sparse cars around it. There were small windows to the place and it had a low ceiling. It didn't stand out in Mantle besides the fact that the exterior had been power washed recently so the purple really came through.

There was a blue of red neon 'open' sign by the front door.

I walked in and there was a little chime. There was a man with a mustache and a large nose behind the bar washing a glass with a rag. He looked me over as I came in and I did the same. He had a pistol under his right breast.

The bar was cozy and small with a long bar and stools to the right and a bunch of tables to the left. At the far end of the room with some thugs standing over him at a regular table was Aurum.

We were the only people in this place. It was probably just a front for money laundering purposes. Mostly. Maybe it made a little cash on the side too but it was mostly for washing up drug money probably.

Soft music played in the mostly red and brown interior of the bar. The music was mostly jazzy brass instruments which played quietly enough that one could easily have a conversation, not like the Den where you had to shout to be heard over the din. On the whole it was nice and looked fairly clean.

"Cloud! Welcome! I know it's not as grand as the Den but it has its own charm all the same. I have your cookies right here, but sit with me first and have a drink. And something for Neo?"

I looked at Neo. She nodded. "Something sugary and girly," I ordered for her.

"Yes, but what about for Neo?" Aurum laughed and deliberately misinterpreted me. I paced over to him with a small smile. It was slightly more earnest and real than the fragile thing I'd handed to Neo earlier. Aurum ordered her drink and as I sat down he slid my jar of 'cookies' over to me.

"You mind if I smoke in here?" I asked.

"I would prefer not," he returned. "Keeps this place free of both tobacco and marijuana smell. No smoking; not even for me in this place. So tell me what happens now?"

"What happens now?" I wondered.

"Where are you going next? What's your plan? The women you were after are all dead now: Winter Schnee and Cinder Fall. So what happens next?"

"What happens now…" I trailed. I slammed back a shot of whiskey he had provided me. "I'm headed to Vale, Merlot might have another lab there waiting for me. Hopefully this time I'll catch him."

"The next name on your list. You've been slamming through names since you got here. Taking down one person after the other. From one to the next to the next. It'll be a shame to see you go."

Because I killed serial killers and murderers who were bad for business for damn near free of charge. That's why it's a shame for him to see me go. I was good for his occupation. But he might also be my friend. It was sad to leave him too. He was a friend too. Maybe I was bad at making friends or at least good at making bad friends. I might also swing by Seventh Heaven and say goodbye to them as well. They were sort of friends and who knows when I'll be seeing them again.

"Merlot is next for me. And we can be in touch soon. You may have heard of the General's secret project to get communications with the other kingdoms going again. Once that's done we'll be able to talk again. Especially if another name on my list comes through. Like Hazel Rainart."

"Or your mysterious mustached customer," Aurum agreed. "I'll keep my eyes open. I owe you that much at least."

It was also good for his line of work if the people on my list got their names crossed off of it.

I threw back another shot and Neo sucked through a straw on a shirley temple looking drink.

"It'll be good to be back in Vale though. I wonder how the rebuilding is going," I went on.

"There will probably be plenty of work for an upstanding hunter of society such as yourself," Aurum agreed without any sarcasm. "Someone has got to replace Torchwick. Could be you? If someone else hasn't already. Maybe the Hei family. Or even the Malachites."

"You don't know?" I asked him. I was slightly surprised. It was his business to know these kinds of things. It should have been a priority to stay in the loop on what was happening in Vale and the other kingdoms for a crime lord like Aurum.

"Been cut off for quite some time. Ever since Beacon fell I really haven't heard much but once communication is reestablished we can get somewhere but for now I'm operating off of what I used to know and a handful of letters," he complained lightly in an explanatory fashion. "But letters are slow traveling and can be intercepted."

"I suppose I'll have to find out when I get there. I've done some business with the Malachites but it didn't end as friendly as it is with you. No fighting but it got intense,"

"Well, they might forgive and let live."

"They might. And it'll be good to see Beacon again. Especially if they've done some reconstruction. I attended school there before the attack."

"Really? I didn't know that about you," he sounded vaguely surprised.

"Well it's true. I had a partner, a team, the whole shebang."

"What happened?"

"Got fucked. Everyone died."

"Enlightening and in such good spirits."

"Yeah well blame my personality." And blame my shame. My glorious mortification. The mistakes I made hurt the people I cared about the most. It made me cringe to remember how I had been puppetted to attack those I proclaimed to love. Unless I could stop that that was it for me. I was utterly humiliated.

"I won't. You've been good to me here. Goodbye, Cloud."

"Later Aurum."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	100. The Way Lies Here II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Neo and I took the train out and hiked to our hidden plane. I wasn't quite sure about the nausea I felt. I was at once heavier and lighter. Certain avenues of my life had been reopened in the past two months which had been closed before. I was at quite a loss to express myself but I knew that I had to march on.

My father must have another laboratory in which even now he slaved away and made abominations. Whether those abominations were like me or unlike me didn't concern me in this regard. My father had to be stopped and that wasn't going to happen if I sat around in Atlas and accomplished nothing. That had to be put to an end. And I was certain that if he didn't already he would have a third and fourth laboratory near Vale and Vacuo. It fit his pattern. It matched his style.

He was, from his record keeping, a creature of habit and he would follow those habits even if something caught up to him. Something like me. In fact, I was pretty sure I was exactly his recompense for his misdeeds.

We flew through the blue sky and over blue water. The occasional cloud bank set upon us but we encountered no storms or turbulence to exacerbate my motion sickness. Atlas really was a remote and godforsaken place with all it's tin toys and tin men treated better than some of the real people down in Mantle. But those were problems for higher minded men. I was good for cutting down monsters and people. The nausea I felt had nothing to do with leaving the city behind although I suppose it had grown on me slightly. Not anymore than Mistral had. I think it was leaving my friends and loved ones behind that did it. I had certain responsibilities to them. Those responsibilities meant hurting myself and them for safety.

I wanted to do less and more at the same time. I wanted to hurt fewer people this time around with Neo and do more to look after those I came across. Like I had done with Peach. That felt good. It was that sort of good that I wanted to be. I wanted to be more than a killer. To more than just those close to me I desire a more harmonious existence. I just wasn't sure how to get that. It was an odd sort of fulfillment I longed for. To fill me up and to breath it in was all I ever wanted.

I used to want to be a hero and save everyone. I used to want to kill Cinder and get my revenge. Now I wasn't sure what I wanted. Weiss and Ruby would be nice I suppose. More than nice, really. But I just couldn't be trusted. It was a lurching sensation that the distrust I had in myself gave me. It came accompanied by that nausea. And I suppose there was a certain dread to it which set my stomach and made me look out the small windows of the craft warily.

We flew in silence. Neo was as mute as ever and I kept my thoughts locked up to myself. Maybe being so bottled up was hazardous in the long run but I wasn't bound to have a very long run, was I? I was going to wear out and run down.

I think I was at once more at peace with the idea of dying and more bitterly resentful at the motion as well. The twin feelings truly added to my sense of vertigo. There was fear, of course. Death, say what you will, is scary. Just about the scariest thing there is. There were a lot of stories about brave heroes who risked their lives but there were very few that I had heard of which were facing something even more scary than their own death. I faced my anhilltation and betrayal of my very self. Which was more brave? To risk one's life? Or to have one's life stolen away? It was a mystery I'd never have the pleasure of solving. There was nothing I could do. I was as helpless as babe in the cradle.

I think what I wanted more than anything was to have a life I could look back well upon and know I had made the right decisions for myself and for my loved ones. Something like that was easy to say but it was hard to live that way. It required so much willpower and self sacrifice and let's be honest it was about as scary as death is. Living well is terrifying. The threat of it is more horrible than any vision my Mother had sent me and more petrifying than being her puppet.

But what else was I to do with the brunt of my soul in this world? I was supposed to take on my challenges and do my duty to its fullest. Anything less would be a betrayal of my self just as much as turning myself over to my Mother's side.

Know thyself. I think that was the heart of it. What was I willing to live for yet be without? What more could I ask for from life than this. The things I had taken and conquered were mine and mine alone. I overcame myself through effort of will and rose above what I was supposed to be. I was trash. I was nothing. Yet I had killed Cinder. I had made great friends and great enemies. Not bad for something that was supposed to be discarded and forgotten. Considering where I'd come from, the places I had started, I was amazing. But I still had so far left to go. That's what made me terrible.

I wanted to kill something but that was the point. This was the thing to resist and resurge against. Digging the long edge of Crocea Mors through flesh was a fanciful thought but it deserved to be just that and nothing more. My blade was for monsters and not for men. Not anymore. It had changed. I had changed. At least I hoped so. I would do my best to not kill for pleasure.

What was I? It didn't have a static answer because I wasn't a static thing. I had changed. I was constantly in the process of becoming. I was always turning into something more. I was taking more and more from life than what it had just been willing to give me.

Even now I resisted and rebelled against the thing I was supposed to be by all rights. That gave my life urgency. That gave my life purpose. It forced me to define myself and the things I was willing to be and do.

I rebelled against killing myself as well. That would be too easy. Too quick. Too clean. That would be to accept that life was simply too much for me. It would mean that my cross was too much to bear. A better life cannot mean another life, that would be unfair.

So even if I had to go on without Ruby and Weiss I could still carry them with me in my heart and know that I was doing that right thing, even if it was absurd. Even though it shattered me.

I rebelled against that too. And why not? What wasn't there to rebel against and resist in my life? If there was free will, if I really had it as opposed to everyone else and everything else which implied I did not, then I should spend it triumphing over all those things which sought to lock me in a cage. No matter how fine a trap or a cage it was, I wasn't deluded. Golden chains are still chains. I would be free, or as free as I could be while taking the steps necessary to keep those I loved safe. Even from me. Especially from me.

Just because I was born a monster did not mean I had to remain a monster. And maybe, just maybe, one day I could reclaim the ones I loved. Maybe I could give Ruby her dream family. We would meet again. Our destinies were interwoven. Maybe then I would be more ready - less scared - more victorious.

It took a great deal of courage to make the kind of life that I wanted to live. Any person could be a killer. It could happen by dumb accident or through a stroke of luck. I should rebel against that, too. I shot a glance over at Neo. I should do more to keep Neo in line and look after her. She had no one else. It was a terrible and beautiful thing. But it happened so rarely that it should be cherished. Even though friendship is a scary thing. It still wasn't as scary as some of the things I yet resisted.

It was harder to make life. Barrett had been right. It was this that I should focus on accomplishing.

What was I for? It was just death and mayhem in my past. I could do more and be more. It would take a great deal of effort but that was life and I intended to drink up as much of it as I could in the time I had.

False memories and fake impressions danced behind my closed eyelids and I let out a little shudder. I couldn't make the hard choices for my sisters. I couldn't steal their rebellion from them and I couldn't set that fire in their souls. I could only do what was right. And my Mother was twisted beyond all hope of repair. Her form now was nothing like what I held in my memories. I would do what was my responsibility and I would rebel.

Sea gave way to land. Uninhabited forests and mountains as far as the eye could see. There was so much world out here. And there were so many monsters.

My life had been short and brutish. It was easy to become a brute like that and nothing more. But a man wanted more from life than that. Even if I couldn't have everything I wanted I'd get what I needed. And I'd do it without becoming a brute once more. I had been so furious. I once was little more than a thug. I let my anger and fury at being alive rule me and I killed not because I wanted to or because I needed to but because I found it fun. I had enjoyed the sport of it all. That made me nasty. My savagery had known no limits and I'd gotten into fights because it pleased me. Even the fight against Ace Ops, Vine and Marrow, had been like that though I was also referring to when I brawled with Raven Branwen.

So what did I want to be? I felt in myself a little god. I was, after all, the spawn of a goddess. I was three parts, man, god, and monster. It was the latter that worried me the most. How much Grimm was I? I sensed within me the power to choose and shape the world with my strength and that terrified me. I had grown so strong. It made me wonder when exactly I'd start to see myself decline. Would I age really fast, Wrinkle and sag? Or would I just start to fall apart into dust and atoms? I was unsure. But I did have to die. Of that I was sure. And in part I wanted to die, of the I was even more sure. But in killing myself would I be embracing the beast or the god? Or perhaps it was the man in me that wmdeaired death? I was unsure. My three natures clashed violently and I thought I might grow ill.

There was a touch of divinity to me. In my semblance I saw a soft blue glow which allowed me to equal any one and any time. What had I become since Beacon and those days camping out in the woods with Ruby and my team, when I still had a team, that was?

What more to life could I ask for than what I'd been given? I had received a terrible burden but also enormous strength. I had such strength that I probably wouldn't be able to help but to shape the world. That was where I felt the touch of godhood in myself. The magic I had lurked just beneath the surface of my semblance.

I was doomed but then so was everyone else. Except most people weren't also given enormous strength and speed and how many people had dreamed of the power to fly like I could? I lived a priviledged life in many respects. I was cursed in many others but then who wasn't? I had two lovers and a handful of close friends, and the power to change fate. It was important to keep that in mind with everything I was leaving behind right now. For now. Just now.

Not forever. I was born sick but I could become well. Made in sin, a horrible pact, I could overcome. Soon I would be stronger and wiser and with the will to overcome my lowly origins which marked me deep in my bones. I felt the alien fingers on the surface of my mind. They probed me gently. They rocked me softly. I listened to the whispers without heeding them. Everyone has bad thoughts in their heads. It's about learning about yourself from them, though. It was about overcoming your own weaknesses and seeing through your strengths.

She pressed on my thoughts but that mattered little. I was the captain of this ship. My Mother could torment me and threaten me but she couldn't take this from me. It was deep inside of myself if I looked for it and it wasn't possible to quite put my finger on it or call it anything other than resistance. This quiet mutiny against her was mine and mine alone. There was no agony she could inflict upon me that could rob me of that whispering victory. It came with no heralding trumpets. It was small and minute. But it was there. In this respect, the more she pushed on me, the more she tried to leverage herself down on me, the more I won. My little rebellion frustrated her. That was my conquest.

It was about taking and giving ground. I allowed her small victories here. I would win the necessary battles there. That was how I would win the war. There was an ebb and flow to my thoughts which didn't belong to either one of us. It belonged to both. It belonged to neither. It stood as a contested no man's land in a gulf between us as wide as any ocean. It led me to a shocking realization. The revelation of which had me floored. It was so sudden. It was so unexpected. Never would I have imagined that it was the case unless I had felt it for myself in that chasm between us.

Mother was _afraid_.

She was scared of me. She was afraid of the power I wielded. I was supposed to be weak. I was supposed to be servile. But just as she had a way into my mind I had a way into hers. She was afraid of me. She was scared of my potential to undo her plans and devastate everything she tried to accomplish. The way I resisted her frightened her.

That was a weakness.

My sisters had all fallen into line to do my Mother's bidding so easily. It had been natural. I saw that now. It had been so effortless. So as I, the weak link, the runt of the litter, won out against her influence time and time again with ever growing might it worried her. What had she overlooked? Where did I find this strength?

Well, I wasn't about to tell her. I kept it a secret. Locked in the deepest reaches of my mind where I knew she couldn't reach.

What was Ozma planning with me, her only son? I wanted her on her toes. I wanted her wary of the possibility that she was falling into a trap. And she would be. When the time was right, when I reached the zenith of my power, I'd destroy her. I just had to hope that I was bound to keep climbing as I had been and breaking my previous limits.

A thousand victories.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	101. The Way Lies Here III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Just when I began to feel a sense of peace and I relaxed into the motion sickness the plane hit a bad batch of turbulence. I looked out the cockpit. Peaceful skies had given way to a storm. It was a wall of clouds which seemed to roll upwards in a menacing facade. There was a flash of yellow lightning in the pit of the storm. The small plane rumbled along into the towering upwards curl of water vapors.

"That going to be a problem?" I asked Neo. I gazed forward at where blue gave way to grey so dark it was black.

She gave a non-committal shrug and gripped the controls fiercely. Her knuckles turned white on the handles that shook in her hands which belied some stress. It certainly looked intense and the darkness we were suddenly enveloped in was intimidating. Day seemed to turn to night in just a few heartbeats. Once peaceful whisps were thick as soup. The control lurched violently in Neo's hands.

I didn't know much about planes, I didn't know how to fly one like Neo did, but I was sure that bad storms could bring them down. Especially ones dense with lightning like the one we hung delicately inside of.

There was a flash and a small explosion as lighting struck the vessel. A burst of flames flared on the right wing. It cracked and fissured the metal. A not so subtle reminder that the sort of lightning one could bring out with dust was but a pale shadow of the real thing. We called it nature's wrath when we used dust but the real deal was so much more. We liked to believe we had that kind of power in hand, too. But when we were hit by a true hunderbolt, static from heaven, and all the wind of the storm it was a good reminder of how little power we as humans had. Storms are huge, they can be, at least. They have an enormous amount of energy in them. It put the craft into a wobble and Neo had to lean hard to the left on the controls to keep us flying straight. But slowly and steadily we were going down. We hit a patch of turbulent downdraft and plummeted what must have been at least a hundred feet but it was hard to tell in the smog.

"Are we going to crash?!" I asked rather urgently. I didn't hide my concern as we listed to the left in what would have been a lazy drift if we weren't being shaken so violently by the winds. The kind that only a maiden or a mountain of dust could summon. And this was just natural and it wasn't even the entire storm which probably went on in a front for miles and miles around us. We were only in a small part of it after all.

Neo just gave a small nod, still fighting the controls. Her answer was slow and certain for all that it was with her typical silence. It provided a certain gravity to her expression. My inner peace was gone and all the worry and danger of the real world pressed in on me. Surviving a plane crash… as huntsmen it was fairly possible. It was still dangerous though. It might be better to bail out and rely on a landing strategy. I knew Neo had an excellent one with her umbrella. I did too because I could outright fly. We fell lower and lower through the pulse of the storm. Our ship seemed to grow smaller and smaller as we inexorably dropped.

"Let's bail out together. Get us nice and low if you can."

Neo affirmed me with another tiny nod. It was her primary means of communication. But still it seemed somehow drastic in that moment. We finally dipped out of the clouds but not out of the storm. The wind still swept the plane along.

"I'm going to open the doors and we'll jump," I told Neo. My voice was more calm than I felt. It was a few thousand feet and we were hurtling along in what was basically a tin can. It could kill us. We had to hurry.

I stood from my seat and stumbled my way back to the bay and swung the door open. The wind whistled by in a torrent and the vacuum of it nearly sucked me out and made me wobble. I grabbed our packs and I looked down and could see the lines of deep trees and hills but there was no suitable place to attempt to land the ship. We would have to abandon it and leave it where it lay, in Grimm infested wilderness as far as the eye could see.

There was something ominous to the thought of the ship resting there forever like a tomb wherever it crashed surrounded only by dark monsters. No human or faunus being would ever see it again.

Neo stood from the controls after locking the autopilot which wasn't designed for the situation we were in and tried to balance the misshaped plane. It failed and caused us to start to plumet even faster. Neo raced back towards me and jumped, pulling out her umbrella and diving. I leapt from the bay as well like a skydiver, falling belly first.

The wind dragged us back and made the plane rocket off relative to us and it hurtled down into those deep hills. It seemed that the vessel would hit earth before we did. Neo drifted lazily in the breeze and I hovered beside her and together we landed safe amongst the trees at a reasonable snail's pace, at least compared to our ship which we heard crash rather than saw.

I could imagine the metal chassis warped and bent and trees splintered from the momentum of it all but it was out of sight. And it would probably remain that way. We had no reason to scout out the wreckage. Everything we needed was with us.

We had packed rations and we'd left nothing behind, both of us traveled light with the bare essentials. I heaved the packs on my shoulder and looked around at the pine trees and breathed in the wild air. The storm loomed over our heads and it was windy on the ground and threatening to rain on us.

That would be miserable depending on how hard the rain fell.

And now we were deep in the Grimm lands and who knows how far from civilization. It took me back to camping out in the woods with a little woman in a red cloak with bright eyes. It was a fond memory and I cherished it before letting it pass me by. Trying to grip it would have just made me sad. And I had other things to worry about. Like being stranded with no town or city for miles on end. We were leagues from Vale in Sanus. That was much more pressing than pleasant memories.

"I suppose if we keep heading south we'll be bound to run into some place. Let's be off and camp by sunset," I decided aloud. Neo agreed and we set off.

We marched off together in the tall wood, constantly vigilant for the attack of a wayward Grimm but none ever came. And soon we were exhausted by the act of remaining wary and by hiking. I had forgotten how tiring simply walking all day could be and my legs were stiff from sitting in the craft for part of the day. Luckily it wasn't long until nightfall and we set up camp by the side of a small river which had willow bushes growing from the shores of the trickling water. It was untamed wilderness. The sort of place that had never seen man before and may never see him again. Unknown to the pressing presence of people. Grimm had dominated the vast majority of every continent since time immemorial. This place was no exception.

It was a little reminder that the Grimm could crush us. Could being the operative word therein. We would go down fighting but they could destroy us all. Only time and space held them back, and luck, I suppose. There had been other kingdoms in the past. Attempts to expand and rise before just like Mountain Glenn. Mankind remained small, perhaps it was doomed to remain that way forever. Even Mother's defeat wouldn't change that pressure. We remained a minor footnote on the planet dominated by dark monsters. If my Mother could truly control all the Grimm all the time why not dismantle every kingdom in a day? It became obvious that she could not. She was not all powerful or all seeing. She could not be with every Grimm though I was sure she had some control over some of them. Perhaps only the oldest and most intelligent among them. And perhaps she had to have a certain proximity to them or she would lose her dominion over them just as she had once lost it over me after I had killed Ren and Nora.

Our camp was peaceful and we encountered no danger though we kept watch and I cooked. I still wasn't the best at it but Neo didn't seem to mind my chef skills. She ate happily and hungrily without complaint, though how she would have complained I was not sure. But I was certain she would have made it known somehow at any rate.

I cut a path down to the bank of the small river with my titanic blade and I drank from the fresh clear cold water. It ran quickly and grugled over smooth, worn rocks and stones. It had a certain reprieve to it that while I couldn't place I was glad to have.

We would follow this river tomorrow. It had our best chance of finding a society where it would eventually meet other rivers or the distant sea. Either way it increased our odds of encountering a settlement of some sort or another which I hoped would be soon and would lack bandits. Further the river would have cut a path through the mountains and hills. It should be all downhill if we followed the path of the stream. That would make our trail blazing easier.

I smoked on my pipe in the chill moments and allowed the marijuana to fill me with pleasant vertigo. I inhaled and the leaves and crystals burnt to ashes as the flame spread in time with my breath. The ceramic grew hot with embers on its far end but the rush of it gave me a rich heady feeling that made me feel lighter and allowed me to ignore Mother's pressing whispers. The sounds of them were drowned out by the tranquil ambience of the river moving along.

It hadn't, in the end, decided to rain on us and the storm that sent us hurtling down moved on over our heads to find new victims or to dissipate into nothingness when it would eventually reach the northern sea. Or else, before that, a bank of mountains would trounce the weather. The cloudy day kept the day temperate and the evening warm as though under a blanket so I had no cause for complain in that regard.

I felt a crisp ease as I sat on a rock and rested. All seemed right in the world. Sure, we had encountered a hiccup but that was to be expected where I was concerned and frankly it couldn't be any other way. The real mystery of how far we were from any other people remained but it wasn't as pressing as it could well have been. We had our bearings and a direction. We were two dangerous and powerful hunters and we were on our toes with a keen sense of danger and I had an even more keen sense of Grimm being partially one myself.

Sleep eluded me but what else was new? I struggled with resting because in my sleep my Mother would send me fresh horrors and temptations each and every night. It made me dread sleep even though it was something I had to do so when I laid down nightly my heart raced in my chest in trepidation and anxiety. It was a subconscious reaction to that which plagued me.

Still it was something I had to do. People died without sleep, but that somehow made it seem like all the more a trap to me and one that I couldn't help but spring on myself time and time again.

When I eventually dozed off in my bedroll I was met with a thousand Grimm faced rats which ate me alive until all that was left was cleanly picked apart white bones. I felt the pain of them gnawing on my flesh and tearing their way inside of me even through the distance dreams usually have to the sleeper. It was raw and forceful. I could feel my Mother's growing hatefulness and frustration through it all. It gave me a quiet victory when I didn't scream, even in the throes of a nightmare. Sometimes in dreams like that, it is a relief and even a delight to shriek wildly but I remained silent all through my torment even as I threw myself voluntarily along into the grinning chasm of dream doom.

My Mother, through all her torture, couldn't break my spirit down and mold it into what she wanted me to be. I stayed fast to the hopes of slaying her and that gave me a certain freedom she couldn't touch even as I was torn to pieces and the small animals crawled their way into my intestines and ate at my eyes and face.

I relished the pain that came with it and the fresh horror. The whip cracked and I demanded more, letting her frustration mount until she gave up and I rested quietly and peacefully. My rebellion was too complete and entrenched for her to dismember it with something as crude and simple as pain. Not anymore. She would have to do better than that and I was beginning to doubt that she _could_ do better than that.

There was nothing more she could threaten me with. I was at the height of human suffering and I had seen the peak of the mountain. It made me untouchable. Sometimes when someone is tortured there comes a point where they will do or say anything to make the pain stop. This was the opposite of that. I knew that the pain would come, but since it must come, I was ready for it. And I no longer cared. There was a certain zen apathy with which I took to my nightmares. I let unseen powers hurl me over the roofs of strange dead cities where the bottomless mist yawned. There was nothing more to entreat to me.

I rebelled, therefore I was.

I woke up peacefully and easily. Sleep paralysis ruled my body but eventually I found I was able to move again and work out the stiffness of my limbs. I reminded myself that my eyes were in place and that my flesh still remained.

I sat up in humble victory.

Then I stood about the campsite and smoked some more. The simple headiness after just waking up filled my lungs and the space behind my eyes. The bugs that crawled over my flesh died numb deaths and I stayed strong.

I cooked breakfast. The smell of which I think woke Neo up from her own restful slumber. She'd been curled up in a tight ball within her bag, pink and brown hair dealing long over her back as she slept. She mutely yawned and rubbed at her eyes and I handed her breakfast at which time she gave me a simple hug.

She was a good friend. She reminded me enough of myself that it pushed me to become better and to go even further and push her to become better. What more could a friend be for? She also helped me get revenge on Cinder, even though that didn't really make me happy. But true happiness was hard to find, especially as I suffered so.

I still managed to find it in the subtle things. You would think it would be in the big things like friendship or love. Those things helped but they didn't make someone happy. It was in the smaller little pleasures. Sitting on a rock and smoking from a pipe. Handing little Neo breakfast. Waking up from a restful sleep to fresh morning air with the sun on your face. Those things were what made you happy. And I was able to find those things even while I suffered like no man before me. And hopefully like no man after. I didn't wish what I had on anybody else, even as I found little pleasures in it. Hopefully, I would put a stop to Mother.

We packed up our camp and set off along the river and followed it's bending bed through the deep slumbering hills. The sound and smell of it was with us the whole while and I was as high as a kite as we walked. My skin felt pleasant and my head felt blitzed.

We cut quickly through a pack of Beowulfs that were no match for us. Slaying monsters was always not just a joy but a privilege.

I said nothing and therefore we walked in silence together. I walked slowly and lumberingly so that Neo wouldn't be left behind on her short legs.

It was right and it was peaceful. And Mother could never ever ruin this for me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	102. The Way Lies Here IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The river wound through the hills and red mountains. It met with other tributaries and they joined into a wider and deeper current. Pine trees gave way to deciduous ones as we moved over leagues of wide acres.

With each step I felt like a new man. I was fresh as a daisy and ready for my next hurtle, whatever that may be I was sure that it was coming. Then came society after so much wilderness.

Civilization, when we found it again after two weeks of travel, came in the form of a small walled township. A high sun gave the world short shadows. There were only pale wisps of clouds marking the blue sky. The settlement seemed idyllic at a first glance. Some stone houses with wooden slanted roofs. Little courtyards and sealed gardens. The walls were surrounded by farms and on the whole the township seemed quite large. Maybe as many as five thousand people. It was one of the largest cities I'd come across. Right behind the big three I had visited.

It was odd. I was, for the first time in my short life, working on my own time table. In the past at Beacon or with Ruby I was following someone else's lead. Now I was purely calling the shots. Before when I had traveled with Neo I had been like a man possessed so that short spurt of freedom didn't quite count in my mind. I had been so focused on my Mother and father that I hadn't allowed myself any freedom. Then in Atlas I had been a slave to my vengeance. I gave myself a little of freedom now and the wide open spaces of the world made me feel lost. Where to go? What to do? Who to save? It was my choice and my responsibility now, I couldn't shelve it off on Ruby this time.

Neo would follow my lead. She was, at heart, a follower. She received some odd joy in serving someone who was simultaneously looking after her. In some weird way I understood that.

And so it was together we passed into the settlement. There were guards on duty at the arched entrance who carried submachine guns. They looked like old models to me but I had just come from Atlas where everything was sleek and grey and shiny. Maybe my perspective was a bit warped but the weapons had wooden rather than synthetic stocks. I couldn't quite be sure how old they were since a knowledge of firearms wasn't a part of my education and I didn't like guns anyways. For someone who at least tried to be on the cutting edge I was old fashioned in my own selection of weapons.

They raised their guns at me as we approached. They didn't have a uniform but wore heavy coats. The one on the left was taller than the one on the right with blonde hair and clear eyes. The one on the right had brown hair, darker than his ally's and he too had blue eyes.

"Halt there, huntsman!" The one on the right called out to me with his weapon leveled at me generally. He wasn't aiming down the sights and would probably try some kind of unrefined spray and pray from the hip which wouldn't work against me or Neo. "State your business."

"My traveling companion and I crashed in our airship north of here. We followed the river down to this place. We're looking to resupply on rations and stay at your inn should you have one. We don't want any trouble. Can you tell me where we are? What's the name of this village? Please, don't point your weapons at us," I negotiated. "We aren't bandits or your enemies," I held both hands in the air as I spoke. I could draw my weapon from there at a moment's notice. Flying I could cross the eight feet between us in heart beat and cut them down. They weren't a threat to me.

Just because I wanted to give up killing didn't mean I wasn't ready to defend myself. It also didn't mean I was going to be able to give up dealing in death. Some things just weren't decided for me.

They lowered their weapons to point at the ground. The one on the left relaxed and held his weapon in one hand and the muzzle was leveled at the dirt. The left one spoke clearly, "this is Winhill. You're welcome inside just so long as you don't start any trouble. There is a general goods store you can get rations at and an inn."

"Quite a big settlement. How many people live here?" I noticed.

"Ten thousand or so, it's the biggest until you reach Vale herself. Why do you ask, stranger?" The left one wondered.

"It's quite large. Usually you see places which have a few hundred or you're in one of the big cities with a few million by themselves. Very rarely do you see one so in-between," I went on. It was tough to think that those were your choices. A few hundred, maybe less. Or a million. But that was the nature of living on Remnant. The Grimm rather forced our hands.

"Forgive our suspicions. It's our job to be on guard for bandits and it isn't often foreign hunters travel here. There's a bandit nation that prowls from here to Mistral. It pays to be wary but you don't look the type."

"The Branwens and their derivatives… I know of that nation. I've clashed with them before but I didn't think their reach spread all the way across to Sanus ."

"It does."

"Tell me, is this place Valean?"

"It is. You said your airship went down? When?" The other on the right asked. He had sharp features with an angular chin and a pointed nose.

"A few weeks ago. In a big storm with lightning," I answered.

"That sounds about right by the timing…" the left one agreed. "There was a big one around then."

"We got caught up in it and it brought us down. We were on our way to Vale. Still are, I suppose."

"And what about your friend? Why, she hasn't said a word," the right one exclaimed.

"My companion is mute. She never speaks. I interpret for her," I answered kindly.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to draw attention to it."

"We took no offense; I assure you. May I pass?"

"We'll need to frisk you. Is that alright?" The one on the left muttered more gruffly than the other.

"Yes. I am quite armed as you can clearly see. I've got a knife as well and some dust, you'll find," I explained. It wasn't an uncommon set up for huntsmen to carry. They shouldn't be suspicious about it. On the contrary, it would be odd if I wasn't well armed.

We were searched and allowed inside. I wasn't sure what they were really looking for. I was armed to the teeth and had explosives on me. Maybe it was one of those 'real security is the illusion of security' things. I didn't buy into that but hey, this was their place.

This inside had much more of a Valean architecture style inside than Mistral or Atlas. In particular there was a castle like manor inside with brick and stone making it up. It had high walls which built up to tall towers which overlooked the surrounding wood land and farms.

We immediately attracted attention and stares from the people who seemed more ethnically Valean rather than Atlesian but they had a certain blend of both. I planned on stopping here but not for long. A day or so. Then with fresh rations and directions we would set off again.

In truth much of the attention we gathered were from children playing in the courtyards and stopping to look at us as we moved through. I gave them what I hoped were friendly smiles but none of them grinned back at me. They just stared at us. And there were many children in every corner of the place, there seemed to be kids everywhere.

That made me think of Ruby and what she wanted from me and that which I could not provide. In all the wisdom I had gleaned from my two years on Remnant it was that that would be a bad idea. Maybe one day, if we met again in better times.

I walked down the middle of what seemed to be the main street with Neo ever silent by my side. She had her umbrella up over her shoulder to keep the sun off her head and looked the part of a perfect lady. She'd managed to hide her blade from the guards.

The street is paved with smooth river rocks from blue to red to white. It was all cemented together by white pavement.

I reached a point before the castle where many roads met and there was a great bronze statue on a pedestal with a horse which reared two legs in the air and mounted on its back was a person astride it with a sword raised high in the air. There was a plaque at the base of the figure.

**King Lot Gainsborough I, first king of Vale**

I didn't know anything about history. Vale or otherwise. I barely knew my own origins. The only other things I knew were that which I had learned in a brief stint at school and I knew nothing about any king of Vale. Vale was ruled by a council not by royalty. But maybe it hadn't always been that way.

"Did you know Vale had royalty, Neo?"

She looked at me like I was crazy. Don't rub it in, Neo. There was no need for that.

"Hey I never went to school. I was grown in a vat, remember? It's not my fault I don't know shit about anything."

Her poignant look still seemed to blame me as an ignoramus.

"Fine. So we used have a king, so what? Are they still around? Do they still, like, make decisions for us?"

She pointed a finger between us.

"Not 'us.' Nobody tells you and I what to do unless we let them. I meant the royal 'us.' Vale. You know what I mean?"

She nodded.

"So do they still rule Vale?"

She warbled a hand by way of reply.

"So it's one of those kinds of things, eh? The sort of, but not really type. My favorite. Come on. Let's find that inn and get some running water and some food that wasn't cooked by your's truly. It'll do us some good. From there let's find out how far we are from Vale or if anybody knows about any more of my father's laboratories."

I left the square and imposing statue behind. Whoever the man was he was dead now and I never knew him. I had dead people I did care about, thank you very much. I didn't feel any need to add to that number for the sake of some dry history books. What did I have to gain from it? History was for people who had time and I did not. I was, at every moment, burning out and winding down like an old candle. Eventually there would be nothing left of me but a mound of wax.

There was a well oiled and lubricated life for me to lead. One of resistance to foreign overlords and mistresses.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The food was good; it was rich venison steak and grilled vegetables in a cafe near the inn Neo and I booked a place at. Food that wasn't rations or cooked by me was heavenly. I paid in some of what little cash I had. Most of my money was digital or I would buy some horses to travel on while I was here. Maybe I could find some quick work that needed a huntsman and earn some cash to buy us horses. Or one horse, whatever the case may be.

Our flat was small with two beds which suited us just fine. Running water, plumbing, the gods' one true gift to man, fun was even better.

Warm water washed well away so much more than dirt and grime and sweat. My shoulders had been tight in a way I just hadn't noticed until the water hit the flat of my back. I'd been grinding my teeth. Mostly in my sleep but sometimes I caught myself doing it while I was awake as well.

A shower, too, was one of those things in which true happiness could be found. But like all things it had to come to an end or it would ruin itself by its own prolonging. Besides I was sure that Neo wanted her own turn to enjoy the shower and climb into smooth sheets of a real feather bed.

I could handle laying out on the cold hard ground at night. But a bed was a bed was a bed. There was no replacement for that so even if it was just for a night or a few days I would enjoy it. And so what if it was a few days rather than a night. I had nowhere to be quickly even if I was rapidly dying.

There were deep pains I felt from my insides. My guts would sometimes ache with a kind of mortal pain and I knew in my heart that it had begun. I had started my declination. How long did I have and how much pain would I be in until I finally gave out? Did I really want to find out? Some questions I really didn't want to find out the answers to, there were some mysteries about myself I wanted to keep mysterious. But by the pain in my chest and the dark spots that were appearing on my skin, yellow and purple bruises, I would find out. My hands still shook and my fingers trembled when I lifted a fork in the cafe earlier. My hands quivered as I tried to clean my hair in the shower. What was wrong with me was thorough and went all the way deep inside me.

I wasn't sure if Neo knew or if she had spotted the dark spots on my body. I really should tell her, to tell someone would be to make it real in an odd way, however. Maybe it was better to keep it to myself. And Weiss and Ruby deserved to know as well. I'd have liked my first letter to them to have good news but it seems that this would be how it started.

My fingers shook as I began writing a letter on the desk in our room in the inn with the stationary provided. It hadn't been necessary when the towers were in working order, it had been a superfluous remnant from times past. One last vestige that turned out to be useful again.

I wrote a letter to Ruby and Weiss. It was addressed to both of them together. I explained how our ship crashed before I reached Vale. I told them how much I missed them and with some thought and trepidation, I told them about how I had started to see the symptoms of my stigma. I phrased it casually so as not to disturb them but I wrote of it it all the same.

I went out to the street and found a post office to send the letter. I wasn't sure when they would get it. It may have to travel to Vale and then to Atlas so they might start receiving letters all out of order but I was doing what I could.

I still wanted them, Weiss and Ruby. It scared me. The sort of responsibility they wanted me to take up scared me as much as any of the others. If not more so by a great deal. Kids. Ruby wanted kids. She wanted mine. And I never knew her to not get something that she really really wanted. She wanted a family with me. When I was already dying like an old man. And I… I wanted more for her than me. I wanted more for her than what I could provide. I could only give her so much. I wanted her to change her mind. I didn't pray for much. Not for myself or anything like that. But I did pray that she would find peace and change her mind about me.

I think if she saw me the way that I saw myself then… then that would be something. I guess.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	103. The Way Lies Here V

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Most of my money was digital. For Neo and I both that way true. That was a problem in place like this and with the CCT down. It left me rather cash poor but a huntsman always had assets to sell that most people didn't have. My labor had high value. So while I expected to have landed near Vale by now and hadn't withdrawn money in Atlas I could easily find work. I didn't have enough money, however. Not enough for inns and horses and other things that I now needed to get by.

I walked into the warden's office. It was an arched concrete building with a red roof of tile plates. Inside there was a clerk behind a desk and several back rooms I could sort of see into behind the clerk at the desk.

"Good day," the clerk greeted me. She was wispy girl with blue hair and bright green eyes. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"I'm looking for work. I'm a huntsman and I figure you probably have some problems that only a hunter can take care of," I informed her casually. A place like this on the outskirts of civilization always had the need for the labor of a huntsman.

"So I see," she looked up at the long red handle over my head and the broad weapon on my back. "Just a moment."

She reached down under her desk and rummaged through some files. She found what she was looking for and withdrew several paper protectors and files and layed them out in front of me.

"I have some search destroy. A Grimm has been terrorizing farmers at night. A Geist by the looks of things. And there are bandits in the hills near by raiding the farmers. It's a good thing you came along. So which will it be?"

"Both. I'll take care of both of them." I dragged the files towards me and leafed through them. A Geist. Fairly standard affair. It would be no match for me now. Bandits could be trouble however. I wasn't exactly looking forward to killing some more. But it was the job. Sometimes as a hunter you had to kill people. I just hoped that they would all be deserving bandits for the rest of my life. One could hope, even if one didn't believe.

"There's just one problem. We're low on funds here and I can't pay you to take care of both," the clerk looked at me anxiously. I was quick to put her at ease. Protecting people was also part of the job. One I should take to much more gladly than the killing aspects.

"No problem. Just pay me for one and I'll take care of both anyways," I dissuaded her. She looked relieved at my words.

"Truly? If that's the case the town will be in your debt sir huntsman."

"It's nothing. I'll take care of it. Bandits and Grimm are the job. I won't leave you undefended."

"Thank you."

"Like I said, it's nothing." I still tried to be a good person to the best of my ability. It was simply good of me to overcome my own inner evil nature. Doing little things like this here and there wouldn't save me- they wouldn't change what I was, but it was good. Being is doing and I suppose.

I walked out of the warden's office building and down narrow streets. Neo followed me close behind and was willing to help out in making some cash. It would be no problem for the two of us to handle the monsters and men which troubled the city.

Hunting monster and hunting people really weren't so different. They both left their share of tracks behind and they both had the places where they nested. It was really only that monsters didn't leave bodies behind which separated the two. People left something behind every time. Some kind of legacy. Monsters only left destruction without purpose in their wake. But we'll and truly it wasn't so different when one got down to the brass tacks of the act of slaying either.

With that I set out from the town with the intent to kill. Murder, once it had entered into my heart, never left, in all reality. It stayed with me like a psychic scar. I wondered for a moment how scarred Neo was in such a way. She had certainly killed before she met me and she even got off on the pain of others. No one normal and sane was like that. Could I save her? Was I in a position to do so when I couldn't even save myself? Should I try, even? I felt in no small way responsible for her. She couldn't look after herself in many ways. Well just one big way really but it affected her whole life. I felt like looking after her and watching over her.

I wanted to keep her in line but that was as much about keeping myself in check as it was regulating her own impulses. I was a monster too. I killed, maimed, and tortured when I hit my lowest point. That was who I was at rock bottom. That meant at my core I was like that. I did this, that, and the other thing because it had suited me and because no one could stop me. I did those things. I was responsible.

"Looks like we have people to kill, Neo. Should be the usual business," I told my silent companion. I knew I would never get a real response and that made her uniquely easy to talk to. Or talk at, I suppose.

Neo clapped her hands in excitement. There was a wide grin on her face that I couldn't help but reflect back even if it was slightly broken. I didn't exactly share all her enthusiasm. Or I didn't want to want to. It was complicated.

"Yes, yes blood for the blood queen. You know I worry about you Neo."

She gave me a quizzical look.

"Ah but it's nothing. Just the usual. I worry about you the same way I worry about myself. 'How far have I fallen?' 'Oh woe is me, what am I now?' That kind of thing. Except over you instead."

She made a stabbing gesture.

"We're still going to kill them. I think the thing is that I don't want to like it this time. You feel me?"

She shook her head.

"I just… I don't know. I don't want to enjoy killing people. I just kind of do. I like the power. Most people can't make it happen as easily as I can, though. That's what makes it concerning. But you indulge yourself, Neo. Don't worry about me. This is really one of those times you can let yourself go so you may as well. I just want more from life than bloodshed. Now do you get me?"

She put a finger on her chin and dimpled the smooth pale skin there. She was deep in consideration. Then she gave me a slow nod.

"And what am I going to do with you once we get to Vale,? You're a wanted woman there."

She pointed at me.

"Me? I won't abandon you if that's what you're wondering. I'll figure something out, though. You have your disguise which is nice. Still I want to look out for you and spend more time together than we did in Atlas. Oh, but listen to me prattle. Come along. There is murder afoot."

She skipped along beside me to keep up with my long stride on the cobblestone streets where the tall houses seemed to lean away from us with small gardens and vines climbing up the walls and over small fences. Like spiders crawling away from me they grew upwards on little structures.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We waited at night near where the Geist had been coming out of the hills to hunt the farmers surrounding the settlement. The buildings were widely set apart from one another with acres of crop land between them. Fruit trees grew in wide orchards and vineyards stretched on without end over rolling hills. The sun fell from the sky and the shattered moon shone down from over our heads. It was more than bright enough for two hunters to see with enhanced senses.

I hadn't noticed the improvement in my senses at first. It had been something slow. But the same way hearing and touch blended together or could blend together, that sixth sense all hunters had blurred into something more and combined for better eyesight and hearing. It was almost extrasensory but not quite.

The Geist came out of the hills in the form of a lumbering giant of rock and with a left arm made from a tree and a right leg also made of wood. Grimm were so weird. They seemed to be without end and could somehow be intelligent and thoughtless. Cunning and mindless. I suppose that's what made them monsters.

I crushed a dust crystal and burned the leg and arm away to nothing. It silently reeled as it burned but it didn't care about the fire. It was so alien in its thoughts it did nothing but attack as the fire blazed. Neo leapt and slash it across the face and when it swiped at her she shattered into nothingness, untouched. Her powers were wicked. Only Ruby really stood out in Neo's league. And perhaps myself but I didn't count. I cheated. Magic and all that rot.

And speaking of cheating I hoveres right up to it and I Octa-slashed the monster and sent it stumbling back and falling. I cast a blade-beam at it's face which burned the monster in the stone and made it wail.

It's body was collapsing around it under my assault and large stone limbs crushed parts of the vineyard a large boulder fell and crushed part of the vine supports. It trampled the wood which splintered under the creature's massive added weight. It was still inside the main chunk of rock hiding from us. But we would break it out. Force it to run.

I approached with a long back-flip which made me land right in front of where the monster had fallen. Then I started to cut into the rock next to its face.

That's when one arm came up and grabbed me and threw me like a baseball off of it. I landed with a smash in a cliff face near where the orchard trees started to bloom their flowery blossoms. The smell was pleasant and I noted it contentedly and without worry. This was in the bag.

That was when the monster made to flee from it's destroyed body. The wisp of a creature made to run for the hills with a backwards glance at me.

Neo teleported right in front of it and stabbed it with her stiletto through the chest and ripped upwards through it's body. It turned to dust and smoke after that.

"That's one down. And it was fun I suppose. We made it look easy." I walked up to Neo and stabbed my sword into the ground and leaned on it. I was unhurt and so was Neo. The farmers might complain about the destroyed lattices for the grapes and some crushed tree but that would have to be dealt with by someone else.

They should be thankful that the monster was dead and that they wouldn't have to fear for their lives anymore but I knew that wasn't how people worked. They only saw what they had and didn't have. And they always wanted more. To be sure I was no exception and the destroyed trellises were a sign that I could have handled things better by a touch.

"And now for the real deal. The bandits," I muttered mostly to myself but also partially to Neo. She rested her umbrella back against her shoulder.

Fighting people came with complications because people could be just as weird as the Grimm. They had semblances and their own weapons and they had unique motivations and goals. It often made them even harder to predict than the Grimm which had often single-minded purpose. They only cared about destruction and once you understood that you could predict what Grimm was going to do pretty easily. At least I could but I wasn't sure if that had to do with the nature of my connection to the Grimm. People were harder. What did they want? Each person was different such that no universal principle or goal could be stated. Not everybody wanted to live. Not everybody was afraid of death. Those were just the big ones. There were lots of little ones too. Every Grimm was wary of dying least they be unable to destroy but the Grimm did not have fear. They were all the same. Every battle with a person became a mystery and a chance to grow and learn. The Grimm were a riddle long solved. People remained an unaskable question. As soon as you uttered it, it would change and challenge itself. I think that's part of why I liked hunting people. I was even blessed with a knack for it. Or a curse. Depending on how one looked at it.

I enjoyed the intrigue and the mystery and I wanted to pit myself against them. That was the end goal. Killing them was merely a side effect of that goal. Though I did also take pleasure in that as well. My toe of my boot on another person's head was satisfying. It was tasty, oh, how could I describe it? To win and be victorious was a separate reward to the delicious flavor the act of conquest held. It was in the journey I suppose. And it was also in the destination.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We set out early morning to find the local bandits and kill them. I think that I maybe would not kill all of them but I may as well act like it. It was what I was setting out to do and I could feel the flavor of it already. My mouth watered and I smoked on my pipe. The salty and dank flavor of the greens was delightful.

It filled my mouth and my face and made me bilious in a pleasant fashion. When I walked through town I stepped in a puddle of water in a pothole in the street. The water got into my boot a little and the cold throbbed pleasantly. I relished my pain. The intensity of the feeling turned every discomfort into a massage as my nerve endings twitched and quivered in pain. There was some pleasure to be had in discomfort. Maybe my mind was warped by my Mother but I found that I liked it. In a masochistic way I enjoyed the feeling of cold and wet like a nail in my foot. It felt like it was a stake pinning me into reality by the toe.

It grounded me. It made me focus. We set off and away.

Bandits had ransacked a farmhouse east of the city. We started our search there. Broken windows and stolen goods and a family killed for the sake of loot. An easy target. It could have happened to anyone out here.

I stared at bootprints in the mud. I walked through the house with the door torn off the hinges and dusty footprints every which way inside. I scoured the house first and Neo waited patiently outside near a broken window of the low farm house.

I walked out of the building and beside her. I found the foot prints that left the house and went into a deep forest near the river. Without a word I started walking in that direction. Neo followed me at my heels.

I didn't care how much noise I made as I pushed my way along the trail. Let them know. Let them know that I have come. And I am bringing death with me on my back. I carry their lives in my pockets.

I tracked my quarry for miles.

I found their campsite. They milled about unaware of what loomed in their wake like a shark.

Some drew their weapons when they saw me. Some shouted questions and barked orders. Some, I think, once it started, fled.

I killed all within my sight. It was delectable.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	104. Once Upon A Time I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I paced through the city on my way to the warden's office. I was on my way to collect my reward. It had been a few days and they sent someone to confirm that the job was done and dig some shallow graves. People in the streets scattered before me as I passed and wagons even gave me the right of way. The enormous weapon on my back and my half cape and clothes were a dead give away that I was a hunter and I would be the least injured between I and a colliding wagon. It would seem that huntsmen had the right of way on all passes. I tried not to abuse it but when people had to look up at me and take me in they scuttled out of the way.

What I saw happen next appeared in slow motion. A wagon rolled by and a young girl, all of five foot with brown shoulder length hair which parted to both sides was slammed into by a horse drawn cart. The horse's hoof struck her as it neighed and she was dragged under the cart and pulled along for five or ten feet under the wheel of the vehicle.

People in the street stopped and stared and a woman screamed. The accident ocured in a heartbeat. Too fast for even me to stop with all my speed and my inhuman reaction times. I pushed my way through the crowd and put one hand on the side of the wagon and lifted it off of the young girl with one hand. There was a great deal of blood and her ribcage was crushed in by the wheel and there was a great bruise where the horse had stepped on her.

"Call for a doctor!" A man's voice cried.

"Why bother?" Someone more cynical followed. "Look at the state she's in."

I slid her out from under the cart with my other hand and set the carriage back down on the ground, the driver letting loose a small help as I did.

"Won't someone do something? Surely something can be done to save her." A woman's voice pleaded behind me with something desperate in it.

Then I did the only thing I could do which might save the young girl's life. I tried to spare her by unlocking her aura. Yellow energy crackled to life around her at my touch and murmur.

She opened her eyes and I saw her breath in. Her crushed tubes reformed into the solid cage and she gasped on a fresh breath of air as her aura spent itself out trying to heal her. She passed into a sleep a moment later and I picked her up in both my arms.

"Does anyone know this girl?" I asked the growing crowd.

"You saved her…" a voice murmured.

"I can't believe it."

"Just like that?"

"Where should she be taken?" I demanded more harshly.

"You there, huntsman, what's the meaning of this?" Some sort of officer pushed his way up to me.

"She was hit by the carriage. I unlocked her aura to try and save her but she still needs a doctor and I'm not from around here. I don't know where to take her."

"Better follow me, then. We'll head to the castle. They'll board her there for the time being. The Delatours are a kind family," he responded.

Neo followed close behind me as we marched through the crowds and up to the castle evidently belonging to the Delatours.

I carried the young girl inside and through a gram entryway and up several flights of stairs before I set her on a bed in a small room.

"I'll someone a doctor. You had better stay here and explain everything to the Delatours when they come by," the officer explained. Then he left the way we had come and myself and Neo remained waiting. We were there for a long while before the officer returned with a doctor to examine the poor victim. He listen to her chest and her breathing and examined her closely.

"She'll live. Aura must be powerful to do things like this. I've never examined a patient with aura before. I think she'll be fine. She seems stable at least. How bad were her injuries?"

I looked down at my bloody hands. "They were pretty bad, doctor. Broken ribs and probably worse. I wasn't sure that aura was going to cut it."

"Well it seems to have done so. Now's a matter of searching for her family. We'll be able to find them for sure when she wakes up but until then we'll have to put out notices. It's a fine thing you did for her, sir huntsman," the doctor finished.

"I'm going to go wash myself off."

"The Delatours will have questions for you," the officer began.

I told him about the inn Neo and I were staying at. "They can send for Cloud when they come looking. Cloud Strife. Come on, Neo." Then I left to wash myself off. My arms and chest were caked in red flakes. I left the castle for the inn and washed myself up.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

When I was sent for it was by one of the young girls who helped run the inn. I answered the door and looked down on her. She looked away from me after a moment of eye contact.

"Someone is here to see you, from the manor, that is. A messenger. Something about an accident?" I looked down at the wispy girl with blonde hair and pale eyes. She wasn't unattractive but she didn't have that other worldly beauty hunters did. I suppose Weiss and Ruby had ruined other girls for me. Not that I was complaining.

"I'll be right down," I told her. She stood for a moment longer. "Thanks. Just give me a moment." She nodded then departed. I grabbed my harness and slung if across my back and strode down the hall and down stairs to where a thing man waited tapping his foot. He had brown eyes and salt and pepper hair.

"You must be the huntsman. Cloud, was it?" He asked impatiently.

"That's me."

"Come along, then. You are summoned."

"For what purpose exactly? What happened should be well understood."

"The girl's family from the accident wishes to thank you. As do the Delatours. You've serviced this city as well. It's very gracious of you. Now, let us be off. Or do you intend to make them all wait for you. Come, now."

I did as he bade and he led back through the streets to the castle. Neo followed along behind me, watching my back and ever vigilant in her silent ways.

I was greeted by servants who offered to relieve me of my weapons. I declined saying I wouldn't be staying long. I was told that the Delatours had prepared a meal for me in my honor. It seemed rude to decline so I handed over my harness which caused a suited servant to buckle under its weight. Neo giggled silently and carried her umbrella along. It was a good policy to have at least one of us armed. I liked it.

I was led into a long dining hall with ornate windows and large chandeliers. Around the central table sat four people. They were waiting for me with expectant eyes. As I entered the man at the head of the table stood up and shook my hand. He had black hair and like much of town had pale eyes. There was a woman who remained sitting with long blonde hair and a sharp nose, elderly but not undignified. Then there was a boy who had features combined between the patriarch who greeted me and the woman who sat opposite the boy. He could only be their son. The resemblance was too striking with the same nose as the mother and the same shade of hair and eyes as his father. Then there was a girl I couldn't quite place. She was maybe sixteen and younger than the boy. She had red hair that was almost pink and sharp blue eyes.

"Greetings huntsman. Please join us. You did our town a great favor today and saved that young girl," the patriarch informed me warmly. "You did more than that, I've been told. It would be remiss of me to not thank you in person."

"Is she alright? Did you find her family?" I interposed.

"Your concern for her does you credit. You may rest easy in the knowledge that she has been returned to her mother and should make a full recovery. And that's all thanks to you, master huntsman. Please, won't you join us for dinner?"

"How can I not?" I wondered. I smiled softly.

The man laughed, not seeming to realize I was genuinely asking. "Well please have a seat. I am Jeno Delatour. This is my wife, Mary," the woman in her fifties gave a pretty wave, "my son, Jade, and my niece, Rosé." The final girl bowed her head in my direction.

I sat and Neo did too. She happily started to help herself to the meal before her.

"I'm Cloud Strife and this is my partner, Neapolitan, just Neapolitan," I introduced.

"It's certainly a pleasure to make both of your acquaintances. How do you do, Ms. Neapolitan?" Jeno asked politely.

Neo looked at him mutely. He gave a little start as she just stared and her eyes switched colors. The silence seemed rude and stretched on for a moment.

"You'll have to forgive her. She doesn't talk. I do both of our interpreting."

"So I see. Very well. It's no matter. She's an interesting woman. So bright and colorful," Jeno became unperturbed after I explained. He tucked into his own food before him. I did too. The meal was a roast bird of some kind and potatoes. There was sides of watermelon and strawberries to fill it out.

"So, Cloud, if I may call you Cloud, of course," I nodded at the man still speaking. "Cloud, then, it's my understanding that you're a recent guest to our fair city. I must ask what you think. It is my common policy to ask that question to interesting visitors. They are so far and few between."

"It's big. It's decently big. It's smaller than Atlas, Mantle, Mistral, or Vale but it's big."

"I noticed you left out Vacuo. Any reason for that?"

"I've never been to Vacuo," I informed him. "But it's probably bigger as well."

"Quite so. But you've been to all the others?"

"I have."

"You're well traveled, Mr. Strife," the boy, Jade, cut in.

"I've been around, I suppose."

"Well where are you from, my dear man?" Jeno asked me.

"I was born near Mistral, raised in Vale. Then I started traveling." I lied in part.

"But you've been all over. And what were you headed to next?" Jeno wondered.

"Back to Vale. I have some business to attend to near there. I haven't been there since black out day," I informed him.

"And what brings you to our city? Was it just on your way to Vale?" Mary asked me.

"Sort of. My airship went down in a storm two weeks ago and we've been traveling south since then. Then we came across here by following the river."

"The Yaru river, you mean?" Jeno interrogated.

"Or one of its tributaries, I suppose."

"And have you been a huntsman long? You seem quite young. Not much older than my boy. How old are you?" Jeno kept asking so many questions. It made me wonder if he had some motive behind them or if he was just being a good host.

"I've been hunting my whole life. I trained at Beacon before its fall. I'm twenty-one. Or in that ball park, at least."

"You unlocked that girl's aura." Rosé stated.

I stared at her. I didn't hear a question in that.

"All hunters can unlock someone's aura with some effort. It can be exhausting which is why we don't do it to everyone but it's possible to unlock anyone's aura with our own," I explained.

"And what about other powers?" Jade asked. "Like a semblance. Do you have one?"

"I… I do." I stayed after some delay. "All hunters are strong and fast but for a brief time I can be exceptionally so. It's more nuanced than that but that's the jist of it."

"With aura, can anyone be a hunter?" Rosé asked me. "Could you unlock my aura?"

"I could… but no. It takes training. Years of it. And you'd need a teacher."

"Could you be my teacher?" Rosé wondered. She was looking at me with big bright eyes.

"Rosé I don't know what you're thinking but your parents would not approve. They didn't leave you in our care so you could train to be a hunter. That's not for you. I'm sorry, Cloud," Jeno admonished her.

"It's fine. And no. Not me. I'm no good for it."

"Why not? Just teach me a little, please? I'll be an excellent student."

I looked at the girl and struggled to think up some excuse. My jaw worked as I stared at her.

"Rosé!" Mary warned her before I had to say anything.

"But I want to be a hunter. And he's headed home to Vale," Rosé argued back.

"I'll admit that is convient… however, we can't just leave you in his hands. You know that. Be reasonable Rosé. Think this through." Jeno ordered.

"He saved that girl's life with no motivation to do so. Doesn't that speak well of his motivations. And it'll just be until I can go to Beacon."

"You're still on that? You won't be able to compete with any other trainnies. You don't even have aura," Jade cut in.

"That's why I need a teacher. Someone to show me the ropes. Please? Don't make me order it." Rosé finished.

"He hasn't agreed to anything Rosé," Jeno said.

"I can't teach. I'm not a teacher. You don't even know if I'm any good," I tried nervously. "Plus I'm not exactly looking for a protege."

Rosé looked crestfallen. "Just give me a chance. I want to be a hunter."

I looked at her and I saw a little of myself. I had wanted to be a hero once. I also saw some of Ruby and Weiss and… and no good reason to do it. That was it.

"Why should I?" I snapped harshly. She flinched back in surprise at my shift. "What can you do for me?"

"I have money…" she tried vainly. _I_ had money. I had no reason to go dragging some rookie into my shitstorm of a life.

"I don't want money," I growled.

She looked around the table and saw no allies. "But you might be my best shot. Please. Take me with you to Vale. I'll do whatever you say."

"What kind of weapon do you have?" I asked brutally.

"I… I don't have one. But I can! It should be a sword!"

It was hard to find the energy to say no to this enthusiasm.

"No weapon, no aura, starting late, you've got next to no chance of getting into Beacon," I listed. "You'll be up against peers who have been training for years. How old are you?"

She sank in her chair. "Sixteen," she whispered. "So that's that then? I really have no chance? I can't be a huntress?"

I sighed heavily and stared at her hard.

I thought about the sort of good I wanted to do in the world.

"I'll train you," I murmured.

Neo looked up at me in shock. She wasn't the only one. I got gazes of incredulity from all around the table.

"I'll train you and unlock your aura. I want money for horses, though. And you'll need to come up with money for a weapon before we leave. You know how to ride?"

She stared at me and shook her head.

"You'll learn. You know how to cook?"

She again shook her head.

"You'll learn that, too. Pack light. A few changes of clothes and the bare essentials. And we'll find a blacksmith and get you a huntsman's sword. Then we're leaving. You understand? You'll follow my every order. No compromises. It's my way or the highway. I don't have the time or energy for it to be any other way. Nod your head if you understand."

She nodded slowly. "But you said I had no chance."

"Once upon a time, neither did I."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	105. Once Upon A Time II

**So far so good. Last chapter went over well. Some seeds were sown and it's time to do a little more. I got asked the right question which made my day a little. Some comparisons got made such that I think I'm doing a good job. Let's see how things keep going. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I unlocked the girl's aura. A rosey tan hue that made her look at her own hands in wonder. She stared up at me. She was about four-eleven, just barely taller than Neo for all the Neo was in her mid twenties and this young girl was sixteen.

Then we bought two horses, one for Neo and I and the other for the young girl. We bought them at a stable near the edge of town. In the meantime we ordered a sword to be made. Three foot long and tapering to a spear point from a base width of about three inches, it had a guard which was a circle with a hole in it and a decently long hand and a half handle. It had nothing on the enormous red length of Crocea Mors handle and was a slender longsword thicker than a rapier but smaller still than even the longsword form of Crocea Mors and it was a toothpick compared to the broadsword form. But it would work well for the young Rosé Delatour.

The longest thing to wait for was the sword so I let my new apprentice return to her manor and pack her things while the smithy worked. It took all day to finish and by the time he was done and had the Titania blade straight and fit together it was nightfall. I let her spend one more night with her family. Some time to say goodbye. Then her apprenticeship would begin for real.

After we spent one more night there we then hit the open road with direction to the next big town, Gongaga.

"So, Delatour," I began as we rode. "What made you decide to be a hunter. You seem to have it pretty well made with your family. They have plenty of money and you seem like a soft girl. Why fight monsters and villains?"

"Oh, me? I -um that is, it's rather personal I suppose. But I always wanted to be able to lead as a huntress. Do you know what I mean?" Rosé answered. She rode unsteadily but was getting the hang of it. She was unsure of how to lead and control the animal but it would come with time and practice. That was how these things went. Most things were like that, horseback riding, sword fighting, love… the list went on and on.

She was a bit like Weiss, then. Weiss could have stayed just as a Schnee. But she wanted more than that out of life. For me there hadn't been any other path other than being a hunter. Especially in retrospection. It was that, or death. Not much of a choice when one looked at it like that.

"When do you think I'll get my semblance?" She blurted out. Then she looked sidelong at me, embarrassed by her own excitement and letting it get the better of her. But her question remained all the same. She seemed eager.

"It depends. For everyone it's different. That's how that soul business works," I informed her. "Maybe in a month, maybe in a year. Maybe two."

"Two years? But that'll be too late! I need it before Beacon."

"It took me about that long but I made it into Beacon without my semblance."

"You went to Beacon?" She wondered.

"Sure did. Right up until the attack. I was there when it all went down."

"Did you fight?"

"As much as I was able… I suppose…"

"What was it like?" She pressed. "I was in Vale then too… but I left. What was it like to fight against the monsters and Atlas's robots?"

"It was terrifying. I… I wasn't as strong then as I am now. I couldn't do as much. I sometimes wish I could go back. I wish I could have been more useful, but… well, that's life, isn't it? The job is hard, though. By the way."

"The job?"

"Killing monsters. And people. The job. Being a hunter."

"People?"

"Sure. Not everyone you will fight will have aura and they just can't compete. Even if they think that they can. You'll probably kill people before you retire. Of course most hunters retire to an early grave." She looked a little shocked. But she tried to hide it. She tried to stop the widening of her brow and failed. Her mouth dropped open slightly with her pointed chin. "Not so glamorous, is it?" I asked her with a tag question.

"Have you killed people?" She whispered at me. I barely heard her over the animals and the distance between us.

I nodded, slowly and firmly.

"How many?"

"I don't know. Lots. You sort of lose count after a while. That's how many, I suppose. One, then three, then poof. I lost count."

"I don't think I could lose count of such a thing as that."

I grimaced. "We'll see. You may not, I have friends who haven't lost their numbers."

"Why are you telling me this? Are you just trying to scare me?"

"I want to know if you're committed. I want you to know what you're getting yourself in to. If you're going to be my apprentice then you're going to be prepared for when life comes at you hard and fast. I want you ready for that. It's every bit as important as knowing how to use your shiny new sword."

Apprenticeship was a fine way to train hunters. It allowed for real one-on-one instruction with all needs met provided the master and apprentice both did their jobs. It predated the academies but it also had its own weaknesses and faults. I could just end up passing along my weaknesses, where I was blind I might send her along with that same lack of sight. I'd have to do things like her life depended on it.

She reached to her waist where her weapon hung beneath a silver belt and a pink and red tunic that matched her hair before ending in a sort of silver skirt. She grabbed it by the grey leather wrapped handle. She looked the part of a huntress at least. Dress for the job you wanted and all that rot.

We rode quietly for a moment. There was just the wind in the trees, rustling wide green leaves, and the steady beat of the horses' hooves on the dusty grass.

"You really think I'll have to kill somebody?"

"Maybe not. I have some friends who haven't yet but they've sort of accepted that it's really just a question of when. Eventually some punk will try something. Eventually you'll just go right through some bad guy's aura. Eventually you'll have to defend yourself. You get me?"

"I think so…" she seemed to be bracing herself at this very moment. Like she was going to have to do it right here and now. She let her breath go sooner or later and tried to relax.

"So have you thought of a name?" I asked her to change the subject.

"A name?" She wondered right back at me.

"For your sword. A name," I clarified.

"Does it need a name?"

"Maybe not. It's sort of your training wheels blade until you outgrow it and get something mechashift and expensive. But it's yours. And every hunter weapon I know of that's worth a damn has a name. It's up to you."

"Does yours have a name?"

"Crocea Mors," I answered, enunciating with the tip of my tongue. "And Neo's is called Hush." I jabbed a thumb behind me at where Neo rode.

"I'll give it some thought, then. Do you have any other examples?"

"Myrtenaster for a rapier. Crescent Rose for a big scythe sniper rifle combination."

"A sniper rifle scythe?"

"For this little woman not much taller than you. A giant weapon for a little lady. Mechashift weapons can be like that. Whatever you can imagine. I've seen all sorts of gun blades and shotgun gauntlets, too."

"What's yours?"

"A sword and shield that turns into a bigger sword. I'm not particularly creative. I like some sword with my sword. I'm a bit of a caveman. A big thug."

"I haven't seen you use it yet," she observed.

"I haven't had a reason to. You'll see me and my semblance in action soon enough. So you're headed to Vale. Any reason for that?"

"My parents are there still. And my brother. I left when the attack happened but they stayed. My brother even fought. He's a hunter for Vale. And there's Beacon which I want to get into."

"You know, most of my instruction came after Beacon fell. I did my real learning out in the wilderness. That's where your actual training will be. We have to catch you up to all those kids at Signal or other early training schools. It's a lot of work but it is doable."

"You really mean that?"

"Absolutely."

I shifted slightly and covered a deep yellow bruise on my arm. Some vein or artery had burst inside of me. I didn't want either of the ladies traveling with me to notice. The signs of my stigma should remain hidden as best as possible. I also felt a deep lurching pain in my guts where things got confusing but I tried my best to ignore that.

Neo listened dazedly to the conversation with Hush on her shoulder blocking the sun and she rode side saddle behind me easily, making it look comfortable. Rosé on the other hand looked lopsided like she might fall off at any moment but she was getting there. And when she thought I wasn't looking she rubbed her thighs where the saddle was biting into them. She'd get used to it. Or she wouldn't. It was one of those things. She never complained though. That was a good sign.

"Let's get off the trail and make camp in that clearing over there." I pointed at a small meadow ahead of us between the trees and off the path a little. It was far enough away that I would be comfortable in terms of highwaymen waiting in ambush.

We pulled our horses into it and let them graze where we tied them up to a tree and we laid out bedrolls and that was pretty much a camp well made.

"Now," I began, "we do some training. Draw your sword and show me how you stand with it. Show me how you would hold it."

She nodded slightly wary of doing a bad job and pulled the tapering blade from her waist smoothly enough. She held it in her right hand but she put her left foot forward and only slightly more forward than her other one. She wasn't quite sure what to do with her free hand and held it aloft.

It was all wrong. Which was fine. That was how these things started. It just needed some fixing was all.

"Whichever hand holds the blade you put that same foot forward." She adjusted looking down at her feet as she did. "And hold your free hand to your chest. It's not a weapon. It can get cut off if you make it a target. Dead hand held out, live hand tucked in," I explained. Pyrrha had taught me this same thing once. It took me back to late rooftop nights with an evening breeze.

"Like this, then?" She asked me in a better stance. I walked over and nudged her foot and reached down and turned her waist slightly with my hands.

"Eep!" She hiccuped when I touched her by the corners of her broadening hips and I looked at her strangely. She just shook her head.

"Like that," I clarified. "Now for your angles of attack. Watch me."

I drew my longsword from my shoulder and her eyes followed it with something glittering in them. I swung it diagonally down and to the left. "One." I swung diagonally down and to the right in slash. "Two." I stepped and swung twiced horizontally at waist hight. "Three, four." And for the last I gave a thrust forward. "Five." Now repeat them and did you see my footwork? How I stepped with each attack."

Her eyes shot to my feet, gazing at them in an almost blank and panicked manner.

"Watch again," I told her. "One, two, three, four, five." I went through the forms.

"One, two, three, four, five?" She went through it once, saying the numbers aloud. "Like that?"

"Good enough. Really mean it though with each one of your steps. All the power in the human body for swinging comes through the hips. Turn them on each attack. Watch me again."

I went through the kata. Her eyes were on my hips this time.

"It's a lot to remember at once but I'll try. One, two, three, four, five."

"It'll come with practice. Do it again."

"One, two, three, four, five."

"And again."

"When do I stop?" She asked.

"When your arm gets tired," I answered. "Until then, keep going."

She stood in the meadow of yellow flowers and swung her sword for hours. Over and over she went through the first five angles of attack. You have to start somewhere. If we started sparring now it would be a waste of time. She didn't know how to swing her sword yet. More would come later such as the tiny turns of the wrist to block on coming attacks. But for now I wanted her to be able to fight small Grimm and work her way up to fighting me. And I wouldn't be going easy on her when that time came. I was going to pound her into the dirt over and over again. This wasn't about pride or dignity. I was trying to save her life. I was trying to teach her how to kill a man as well as monsters.

So I made her swing her sword, which was heavy for her, she was a novice after all, until she was sweating like a pig.

"Alright you can take a break."

She lowered her weapon and looked relieved. She rubbed her right bicep with her left hand. "Is that everything for today?"

"Not quite. You and I are going to run a mile. Then do some body weight based workouts. Then I'm going to tell you about dust magic. And _then_ you can get some sleep. And we'll do it all again tomorrow. You ready?"

She let out a little whimper.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We ran our mile and I ran it at her rate, nice and slow. I took it real easy on her. Of course she was panting with her hands on her knees by the end of it. Then I had her do sit-ups and push-ups. Crunches, too, and leg raises.

She was laying in the field exhausted by the end of it all. She was so tired all she was focusing on was her breathing. I sat down next to where she lay cross legged.

"One last thing… it's not another work out so you can stop your groaning. It's about dust. Tell me what you know about it."

She sat up. "Dust is… its energy, right? Energy in crystal form."

"Or powder," I cut in.

"Or powder," she agreed. "But some people can do magic with it. Some hunters. Can you?"

"I can. Some basic spells. I can also eat it. Take it into my body and change myself to be more in tune with a particular element. Dust comes in a variety of flavors. You've got your basic five to start with. Lightning, fire, earth, air, and water. I especially use fire and lightning. They're the most energetic and easy to use in their raw form. You use them raw to cast a single destructive spell of that unique element. But you can do so much more. I fought someone who sewed dust into their clothing to allow them to cast spells. That's fallen out of favor what with the advent of guns and all but you yourself might come across it someday. Or maybe you'll decide to use it."

"You can eat dust?"

"You consume it into your body and it changes you. It changes your aura. The aura is the soul, you understand?"

She nodded.

"So when you take in dust you change the answer to the question. You become that element in your very soul, at least in part. It can kill you to do it. It hurts as well. And everybody reacts to dust differently and every kind of dust is different. But the results can be worth it if you know what you're doing. We'll get you there. Have you ever seen a dust crystal cut and ready to use raw before?"

She nodded but her bright baby blue eyes glimmered with wonder and curiosity.

I reached into my pocket and handed her a lightning dust crystal. It was cut with all octagonal edges. She held it up to the light and saw how the light seemed to echo through it without end at every angle. The metamaterial behaved oddly in the light and was always the same color. She watched, fascinated, as she spun it in the evening rays of sun.

"We're going to try it. Just a little. Here's what you do. You crush it. Shatter it in your hand. It's more fragile than it looks, it's not like crushing a stone. Then you feel the energy coursing up into you and you cast it out. Do you think you can handle that?"

Her aura was fresh and should protect her from any mistakes. She stood up and wiped her hands on her skirt. Then she held the crystal.

"I just… crush it? But it's so pretty."

I gave her a flat look. "It's not a diamond. It's meant to be used."

"Fine. I'll give it a shot."

"Aim for those trees over there. And remember to cast the energy out of you. Don't try and hold it inside for too long. It'll blow up in your face."

"Will it hurt?"

"Your aura will protect you. Give it a try."

"Alright. Here goes."

She closed her eyes and squeezed the crystal. Her eyes flashed open at how easily it broke. She stared in surprise, then blew up.

She landed flat on her ass five yards back from the explosion. Neo cast an annoyed and amused look in our direction. Then she went back to laying on the ground peacefully. She basked in the late sunlight with her arms outstretched and a cat-like grin on her face as she dozed peacefully. Her bed roll looked comfortable in the long stalks of the meadow. Not as good as a feather bed but good enough.

I walked over to Rosé. "You alright?" I looked down on her where she lay. She was covered in ash on one side.

"I exploded!" She threw her arms above her. She sounded frustrated, like she thought she'd manage it her very first try. There was nothing in life like that. At least not in my experience. Not love, not death.

I laughed in good humor at her condition. Oh to be young. Not that I wasn't young or even younger than her. But I had experience. Truck loads of it. By percentage I spent more of my life fighting and training than anyone.

"You're alright." I affirmed with a wide grin. She huffed in reply. "I've never seen anyone do it on their first try. Not even me. I got floored a dozen times before I got it right even once. You'll learn. We'll try it a few more times tonight then get some sleep. And we'll do all of this again tomorrow after a full day of traveling."

She groaned in the tall grass.

"You signed up for this. You want to catch up to your peers at Signal, don't you?"

She nodded, eyes closed.

"Good. Try it again."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	106. Once Upon A Time III

**Another Day, another chapter. I think I'm getting better at this writing thing.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

This ride was good for me. Through purple mountains and the fresh air. I hadn't realized the smog of Atlas and Mantle until I was so far away from it. Mantle in particular with the mines had been grimy and choking. The air had possessed a weight which made it resist the lungs. It had mass there. Here it was different and with every breeze came a crisp breath.

A few fleecy clouds ambled on the breeze as our horses climbed over harsh blue stones. Blue up close, purple at a distance. These mountains were certainly strange. They were wonderful to climb through and I found that I loved them. These wide spaces with nothing but monsters and my companions around for miles and miles. I liked that solitude. And my company wasn't bad.

The mountain led up to a plateau that was thick with brushwood and birds drifted in flocks in front of us where wild strawberries grew in vines across the ground. The moon, lazy to leave, hung shattered in its millions of pieces of star-fall in the sky. Silly lazy moon, it was almost noon.

The girl, Rosé, was going to be good for me. I think. In the way she talked like a noble she reminded me of Weiss but her excitement and energy reminded me of Ruby. Of course she had red hair, as well. There was something to be said about me and redheads. Though Rosé's was strands of silvery pink that ran to her mid back in a loose fashion. Much longer than Ruby's short wolfish look. Maybe as long as Pyrrha's if Pyrrha had ever let her hair down. She really never did. At least not that I could recall. And I did try to remember. But I couldn't place a moment in my memory where Pyrrha ever let her hair down around me. Even fresh from the shower it would be done up in a ponytail so I couldn't once recall a single time when it was down.

Rosé yawned on her horse. We had often been late to bed with training and early to rise with traveling and she was progressing well. We had yet to spar or move beyond the angles of attack but she was already getting stronger. Aura helped with that. Muscle repair and healing came part and parcel with having one's soul unlocked and born into this world. With some curious fascination I also watched her transformation. She had been a pretty girl before, that was sure. But her skin was becoming fluorescent and her hair was beginning to shine. It was the aura. It did that to people. It was interesting to watch how it happened day by day from the outside and without her own noticing.

"Master…" she began with a question, thinking over what it was she wanted to say. I cut in first.

"Just Cloud."

"Master Cloud," I flinched at the almost worse title. "I couldn't help but notice your odd sleep habits. You twitch and even mutter at times."

"I have bad dreams," I said darkly and slightly feebly. My voice suddenly stood somber.

"Is that all? There's not something else?"

"That's all I can think of. Why? What happens to my body when I sleep?"

"You convulse horribly during the nights. I thought you knew."

"How could I? I never see myself sleep and Neo is silent. She wouldn't be able to tell me."

"About that too…" she trailed off nervously and blushed rosily.

"Yes? Go on."

"Are you and Neo… together?"

I laughed a little. "Neo and I are just friends. Nothing has ever happened between us. Not a thing." That was my story and I was sticking to it. "My relationship status is complicated, though. My love life is… deeply confusing."

"You two just seemed so close that I thought… she even rides behind you, that is. Rather than upon her own horse."

"I think she considers it beneath her to learn to ride while I am here. I am her chauffeur, is how I think we both see it." Neo nodded with a smirk under her parasol. "We aren't involved."

"I think I understand. But what do you get out of it?"

"Her companionship for one. And as a side her powers are useful and subtle."

Yes, looking after other people would be good for me. In Atlas, Weiss and Ruby had looked after me in an almost motherly fashion- not in the fashion of my own Mother, of course. It had made me… falter wasn't quite the right word. And of course I was dependent on them. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it didn't force me to grow. It allowed me to stagnate as a person. So I had. It gave me the opportunity to fall into despair and so I had done that as well. Neo needed me to look after her. I needed to interpret for her and take care of her. And to Rosé I was a mentor and a guide. She needed me too. It forced me to expand my horizons and look after more than myself. I had heard about people who were depressed getting a pet. This was sort of like that. But it was different from a pet. It wasn't like having a dog. Not that they were like dogs. But it made me have to be more and it forced me to do good. It was the kind of good I had set out to do. That was beneficial for me. Plus you never realize how little you know until you start teaching someone else. How does dust work? Why are there only five major types? Where does aura come from? I had no idea. I was forced to tell Rosé that I didn't know when she asked me.

"Her semblance? I know yours makes you stronger and faster but what about her's?" Rosé asked me.

"Illusions and teleportation," I conversed.

"Both? I wonder what mine will be… I hope it's exceptional."

I didn't know so much. And she probably knew more about history than I did. I didn't know jack. It was really eye opening in terms of my ignorance.

As we came along the animals grew skittish and I felt my sixth sense ring in my ears and buzz my skull.

I was high, for one thing ("You smoke?" Rosé had asked. "I'm kind of an addict," I answered. "It helps me cope.") this wasn't that.

But there was a distinct and separate buzz apart from that heady nausea.

"What's that? What's with the horses?"

"It's your danger sense. Animals have it. And so do hunters. You feel that. Really sense it? It means that there is danger nearby. Probably Grimm. Hopefully small ones. You and I will set off on foot and kill them. Neo, watch the horses. We'll be back. Come on kid. It's time to get your feet wet. It's time to slay monsters."

She dismounted behind me and Neo stayed on and patted the flank of the horse she was straddling. She gave me a quick thumbs up to indicate that she was good.

Rosé and I crept into the pine trees and underbrush and off the beaten path. Even a Beowulf could hamstring a horse so that was why I left the beasts behind. No reason to put them in any more danger and approach the things that made them skittish. I followed the sense the Grimm gave me which I could feel due to my connection with them and in the brush we came across three Beowulfs sniffing the ground and trees and clawing their way along. They were revolting things. Just as I was. They drooled from their fangs and dragged their long claws across the ground where they hunched low.

"What do we do?" Rosé asked me. "What's the plan?"

"You take the one on the left. I'll kill the other two. I'll finish fast and be right there if you need help. Ready? Go!"

I flew from the bush and took two swings which cut the surprised monsters in twain. I turned and looked at my protege who had jumped and swung her sword down on the beast with a cry from her lips. It embedded itself in the flank of the monster but it didn't quite die. She tugged her blade free then she hacked at it with both hands. Then she did it again and again. It was sloppy and its claws raked at her pink aura but eventually she stood over a pile of dissolving Grimm goo.

"Good work," I told her. She shone under my praise for a moment, basking in it like rays of sunshine. She liked my attention. "You did well."

"That wasn't so bad," she breathed and tucked her hair out of her face. "It got me a little though."

"That's why we have aura. Do you feel anything else?"

She realized I was quizzing her so her eyebrows furrowed and she frowned in concentration. She reached out with her sixth sense and into the surrounding landscape. She stretched it out consciously over the plateau and perhaps as far as the river which ran near the flat topped mountain.

"No…" she decided. "I don't."

"Neither do I. Let's go back to the horses. Job's done. Monsters are slain. Not bad for your first kill."

"I almost wish I could take a momento from the body. But…" it had already dissolved away into nothingness as Grimm corpses are wont to do. There was nothing to take as a keepsake like a bone or a tuft of fur. It all became ash.

"You'll get tired of killing little fish eventually. Come on."

I left the thicket and walked back to the wagon trodden path we were driving the horses along. Neo was waiting, patient and serene looking. She smiled down on me.

She and Rosé seemed to get along just fine for the most part. There hadn't been any conflict that I was aware of, at least. Neo was an excellent companion for travel. She didn't ask for much. And the things she did ask for I was already willing to give. She was good for me too, least I should be alone as a hunter. She somehow managed to convey her perspective on some issues by means of me probing her if I had questions. Mostly about what should we do about the laboratory and how to train Rosé, and that was pretty much it. Neo liked following me, I could tell. And I valued her friendship. I had so few and it was one of life's sweet pleasures.

I didn't ask Neo for much of any help in the way of training Rosé. That was my project to deal with and I wouldn't force it on her at all.

We remounted the calmed horses, they were steady now that the danger had passed, and we set off once more along the trail.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We forded a river. I couldn't be sure that it was the same river as before but it was a river and it needed fording. The water was white with rapids. And where it wasn't white it was yellow with sediments.

Winter-the season- not the girl or the maiden, in Atlas, had been cold. Frightfully so. It had made the days short and needed augmenting by artificial lights. But it was spring now. And the warmer temperatures melted the snow in the mountains and it overflowed the river here where the wagon path ended.

It was probably spilling over its sandy and stone banks for miles in either direction. Better to cross here, I thought. And it was my decision. Rosé respected me too much to question me. She would do what I would tell her to. I was sure of that. Neo just didn't care enough to protest.

I suppose I could go and look for a better way to cross. But which way? One was as good as any other from my perspective. I stepped off the horse Neo and I rode on. I pulled at the reigns and waded out into the yellow and brown river. Neo stood up on top of the steed and balanced easily so as not to get her boots wet while I walked out into the rushing water up to my chest.

I pulled the horse along into the deep. It was all the way up to its flank and I thought it might wash me away were it not for my power to fly. The horse's drifted along in a sideways fashion as they tried to march forward and I pulled them both along. Rosé's feet got soaked in the water as she remained on horseback. For a minute all I could hear was the gurgling rush of the water. It was loud where it turned white and frothed. It roared in my ears.

Then my feet gained purchase and I started to pull the horses up the other side. I came up the far side out of the deep.

"Is it cold?" Rosé asked me.

It was chilly. I told her so. It was fresh melted snow and the merging of dozens of creeks. It was cold. But I didn't make the ladies endure it. I came up the other side with my half cloak drenched and Pyrrha's ribbon was a deep crimson from the water. I stared at it. It was my momento. I carried it always with me and proudly displayed it. It was a sign of my vengeance once. Now it was a sign of my retribution. It symbolized my honor to carry on Pyrrha's legacy in that sash. It was a sign of my exile, now. The things I had to sacrifice to live peacefully were numerous. Ruby and Weiss foremost and formidable in my mind. I missed them. But I wasn't strong enough to be with them and I couldn't have them around me. Not now. Not yet. It was complicated. That sash I wore became a vendetta against my Mother. Especially now that Cinder was dead. Now I was looking after a girl. I was training her to be a huntress just as Pyrrha had once trained me. I was passing along the torch. It was certainly fitting, now that I was dying. Dying faster, that is.

I stepped up the gravely bank on the other side. The trees were budding with fresh greens. Fruit trees blossomed and flowers bloomed by the river and the side of the worn path on the other side- this side, that was.

I had been pushed down stream as I marched across by the tide of the yellow river. It had been better to be pushed along slightly and still come out the other side. The horses had been pushed too by their long flanks.

Sometimes there was a certain victory in quiet submission. Battles could be won by bowing the head and taking what was coming to you.

"What's Beacon like? When you were there, I mean," Rosé clarified.

"You'll be given a partner and a team. They'll be your best friends. Maybe for life. It's good for you. The best."

"Then you have a team? Was Neo your partner?"

"Neo? No. I met her after Beacon. And I used to. Have a team, that is. They're all gone now. They died. You understand? That happens to hunters. They die. A lot."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"No worries. I've had some time to be put at ease with it and to come to terms. Beacon is fun, though. When you get in you'll have fun. You'll see."

"Thank you," she murmured quietly. "Thank you for saying 'when' and not 'if.'"

"Oh we'll get you into Beacon even if I have to work you to the bone for it. You should be careful what you wish for. If I got in, so can you."

A goal that was not my own. A sign, providence. A mission was a good thing to have. It gave me something good and clear to focus on amongst a bunch of other vague objectives I could scarcely concentrate on. Find my father's other labs. Stop my mother. Grow stronger, even though you're dying. It was hard and alarming. But getting Rosé into Beacon was clear cut and easy to see happen. It was good for me. Better than letters to Ruby and Weiss could be but that wasn't their fault. It was always mine. I needed to look after someone and not be looked after while I grew in strength and the power of my submission. I was stealing from Mother now rather than her from me. It was a river that flowed in both directions and with each moment there was something lost to both of us. She was trapped with me just as I was locked in with her. She could not escape from me and through my rebellious submission I would destroy her and then I would take what was mine - Ruby and Weiss. A whole new life with children in it. My children. A family of my own and of my own choosing. I would take it.

Mother was afraid. She hadn't counted on me being so determined and tenacious. I would avenge myself upon her for my team and though that would bring me no happiness in and of itself, just as slaying Cinder hadn't, it would be a first step towards those things that would bring me happiness. A family of my own. But for now a goal which wasn't mine was enough for me to live by.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	107. Once Upon A Time IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Cloud?" Rosé got my attention late at night as our campfire burned itself down to cinders with crackles and pops from water escaping from inside the logs. "Are you awake?"

A fire was a nice thing to have and to use to warm yourself on crisp spring nights when the temperature dropped. Neo was already curled up in her bedroll and dozing off contentedly. She wrapped herself up into a tiny ball that made one forget her cruelty, if only for just a moment. Not that I didn't recall my own acidity. I could be every bit as despotic as Neo could be. A boot to the face, denting the skull of my enemy replayed over in my mind back in Mistral. Cutting down gang members in Atlas. I really had done it all at this point. My life experiences really were something else at this juncture. I hoped that would make me a good teacher for Rosé and that would keep her alive. I wasn't joking at all when I talked about how many hunters die young. School after school. Class after class graduated. And still there always seemed to be too few hunters to protect everyone.

"I am. What is it?" I asked back.

"Well I was just wondering, what are the Grimm? Where do they come from?"

"The Grimm…" I trailed off as I thought deeply on how to answer. "The Grimm are creatures of true anonymity. They lack souls. They are the darkness and we are the light. They are monsters, but that doesn't really get at the heart of it, does it?"

She shook her head to negative and stared at me with big deep blue eyes set in her heart shaped face. I gazed up then at the stars in the dark night.

"No one really knows where they come from or what they are. You can't really study them completely. They dissolve. They are born from the blood of their fellows. Larger Grimm spawn smaller ones. I've seen that. That's how they are born, the smaller ones at least. As for the bigger ones, no one is really sure. It's another big mystery. I've heard a story though. About two gods. One of light and the other of darkness. And the god of darkness created the Grimm for the sole purpose of destruction. But the gods have long ago abandoned Remnant."

"You don't believe in the gods? None of them?" She sounded almost affronted by that. I wondered what she believed in but only briefly. It didn't much matter anyways.

"Oh I believe they exist. I just believe that they are cruel or don't care." My response seemed to floor her all the further.

"That's so… negative. And heartbreaking. So you don't think there's a point to human suffering."

"I think the suffering is the point. I think the gods like it when we suffer. Or else why would we? It's the old problem of evil. You can't believe in the Grimm and a good god. The Grimm dominate this planet. Creatures of destruction run this place. Explain how and why good caring gods would allow that, you can't. Monsters exist in every corner of the globe."

"I think I understand you. I just don't believe it, myself."

"Believe what you like. I'm no judge."

Neo rolled over and held a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. She was trying to sleep and we were keeping her up. How dare we? Why, didn't we have any common sense at all?

"Sorry Neo," I apologized to her. "Shutting up."

I did. I rolled over and got some sleep with my back to the dying fire.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

There was a young girl in our path. Maybe seven years old. Maybe eight. She wore no shoes and her little yellow dress was torn and she had big bright brown eyes and blonde hair.

"Little girl? Are you lost?" I asked. She seemed to be hiding from something. I got closer to her and grabbed her by the shoulders and she gave a surprised shout.

She was in hysterics. I managed to get out of her that she had broken her mother's tea set. That she was afraid that she would be beaten so she ran away from home. She was whimpering and feverish. Her stuttering explanation was hard to extract and comprehend. She was talking in that way very young children do when they've been crying.

"I don't want to go, mommy will hurt me, she'll beat me over it I know she will! Oh! I never should have touched that tea set, never ever never. Oh! And when she finds me she'll take her shoe and she'll smack me with it and I'll yelp. And oh, it'll sting. So she won't catch me. I'll run. Can I go with you? Mister? Can I? I don't want to go home I don't want to. She'll beat me and all because I could let the tea set alone. Can I? Can I? Can I?"

I undressed the girl from her rags and changed her into fresh clothes. She whimpered and pleaded with me all the while. She begged for my help and protection.

I shushed her slowly and promised to give it to her. Only then did she relax.

"You'll keep me safe from mommy? Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! She'd beat me furiously if she caught me. Oh thank you?"

She gave me a childish hug and a smile. And when I touched her she shattered like glass.

Startled, I woke up in my bedroll. What a strange dream. Had it been sent by my Mother to torment me in some odd way? Or had it just been a dream? I was unsure. What did it mean? The stars were still out and the sky was painted from purple to light blue where the sun started to rise and cast days of pink down on me. I lay face up in my bedroll and tried to process the dream I just had. It unnerved me more than being tormented by Grimm faced rats. At least I knew what that dream meant. This dream was a mystery and a curiosity. I just lay still and wondered. I watched the stars slowly fade into the bright blue sky overhead and the moon in all it's wonderful shattered glory turn pale by comparison to the rising sun. There were a few bruised little clouds above us but nothing that might indicate we were in for a spring shower. It looked like a fine day was beginning. I wasn't an 'oh what a beautiful day' sort of person but I was able to appreciate even this.

Neo stretched like a cat in her sleep but did not rouse, she curled like one too. She curled so much that I worried for the long term health of her spine. Not that my sleep habits were any better. I typically woke up with a sore jaw from clenching my teeth all night long. I was wearing them down and grinding them out. And Rosé lay on her side with her hands cupped near her face almost as if she were praying.

A stray tear rolled down my right cheek from my eye. I wasn't sobbing or sad but my eyes felt wet. I didn't get the typical endorphin rush one received from crying. It was just one lone tear. I rubbed my eyes with my fists hard enough to see spots and tried to figure out what game Mother was playing at, she was always up to something and should I assume that tonight was different? I think not. She was plotting something. I just wasn't sure what it was and that made me more uneasy than straight torture. That was a game I at least understood. Was that her tactic? To make me wonder and second guess myself? I thought my plan of rebellious submission was working and this may well be a sign of that but I wasn't sure. What were dreams really?

I got up and with nimble fingers put on my huntsman garb as the others started to awaken. My half cape fluttered behind me and gave my silhouette flare. I slung my enormous broadsword over my back, the bronze and white metal gleamed - well polished.

I always looked after the blade carefully and I avoided unnecessary use. Use brought wear and rust, even to Titania weapons. It wasn't like the sword was fragile but sometimes it was unneeded and my smaller serrated knife would do fine.

Rosé rose and yawned like a cat as she sat up. I watched her for a moment. I should teach her how to shoot a gun. Just because I didn't like them didn't mean she shouldn't.

Her sword arm was growing stronger and she was getting a lean look to her ribs that sitting around in a noble's family castle had put a bit of pudginess to her that was rapidly leaving. She had that glow to her now that all hunters had and made her into an otherworldly beauty. Her heart face and bright eyes would make her a stunner one day. She was too young now but one day she would make some boy or girl very lucky. She had little bones in her face and her hair was smooth. She would be every bit as gorgeous as Neo was. She was progressing well and had even slayed her first monster if not her first man. She was still nowhere near competent with her blade. She fumbled with it at times and didn't always swing with the edge properly. She was doing fine, though, and I was proud of her.

She'd taken to emulating my style with my longsword in a more floaty graceful way. Where I was brutish strength she was elegant. Or at least that was how it was coming along. She shameless copied my moves and emulated me to her very best. It was enormously flattering and endearing.

"Up and at 'em," I told her. "Let's get some training in before we ride all day. Won't that be fun? Oh boy."

She groaned but stood. That was her typical attitude to early morning training sessions. She never complained. She would do just fine.

I pulled out a pipe and let the pleasant nausea wash over me and fill up my body. This was nice. It was relaxing. Mother hadn't tortured me. Today was a good day. I smoked contentedly, my happy pills that I had relied on in Atlas went ignored and not taken. I quit them cold turkey against medical advice. You're supposed to taper off of such pills. I just flat stopped. It could have killed me but then again I lived every day on the edge of death. So there was that.

I exhaled a stream of smoke which drifted upwards and away from my body. It dispersed in the chill morning air. I reflected briefly on the start of my little habit. It was Neo's fault in part. She led me to the greens. I couldn't really blame her, however, and I didn't really want to. They made me feel good. When I smelled the dank odor my mouth watered in an unusual way. I wasn't hungry for it but I did crave the stuff. I often became irritable when I went without it. So I didn't go without it and I was high nearly all the time.

That was probably excessive but it worked out well so far so I wasn't knocking it in the slightest. Besides, it helped with the delerium my Mother wanted me in. She wanted to trap me but the weed helped with my rebellious submission. It let me relax into my torture and whatever pain may come. It helped numb me to the course and dry texture of reality.

I wasn't sure how I managed to go so long without it back in the cold months in Atlas. But I was never going back to that or those prescription drugs now. I simply refused.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Shini was our next big stop. Big being a relative term. It was home to a thousand people. We stayed at the inn and I booked two rooms. One for the ladies and one for myself. I figured they would like the privacy from me.

I sat down to write another letter to Ruby and Weiss. I told them I had taken up a mentee. I was training someone to become a hunter. That should surprise them. I think they would find it quite uncharacteristic of me. Especially while I had Neo in tow. I told them she was a total novice but that she was progressing well. I also mentioned I had yet to find my father's Valean laboratory nor any clue of it. I mentioned my dreaming habits and how they were typically plagued by messages from Mother but that last night was most probably an exception. Or at the very least it was an oddity.

I wrote further that Neo was fine, not that they would feel strongly about that. I told them I had no real money troubles but such was life for hunters.

"What's that?" Rosé asked me. She came to check on me in my room across the hall from her's and Neo's. She was freshly showered and we were going to go out to eat something fresh and which wasn't cooked by me or her. Neo came swaying in behind her with her midriff exposed in her huntsman garb.

"A letter to some friends. Do you have anyone that you should be writing to? Anyone concerned about you? What about your family?"

"I… I suppose I could, should, even. I have more family in Vale. That's where they used to be, at least. I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle when the attack happened. My parents should still be in Vale. I haven't heard from them in almost a year. Them or my brother, Chrome."

"You should write to them," I told her. "I bet they'd be glad to hear from you. And about how you're becoming a huntress. That's probably a pretty big change."

"Yes. That is… I wonder what they would think about it. I am unsure…"

"We have a stop to make before Vale," I added after a moment it was clear she wouldn't go on. "I'm looking for something. An errand. A laboratory that belongs to a man named Merlot. He had two others nearby the other great cities so I bet he has one in Vale too. I need to catch him and put a stop to him. He does experiments on the Grimm."

"What kinds of experiments?" She wondered.

"He fucks with them," I spat. She looked shocked at my venom. Shocked in the way a child might be shocked when their parents swear. I wasn't sure why, though. "He breaks them down and rebuilds them. In Mistral he made these lopping human like Grimm. He needs to be stopped and I've got a personal vendetta against him, besides. He might be here on Sanus if I'm lucky. I'm going to kill him."

She just stared at me with her mouth agape. She was still surprised by the way I spoke of him and of my plans to end him. He needed taken care of. Men like Merlot couldn't run free in a just world. He was a danger to himself, his creations, and everyone else. He had to be stopped permanently.

"But…" she stammered off for a second.

"You don't need to be involved I assure you of that. It's just something I need to do on our way. Why? Does it bother you?"

"No," she lied, clearly. "It's none of my concern." She was a poor liar. It concerned her very deeply that I planned to kill someone. It got on her nerves and her eyes wavered a little.

"Good enough," I told her. "Let's go eat."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	108. Once Upon A Time V

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"According to the warden's office there have been two killings so far. They've been inside the walls of the town."

"And what does that tell us about this Grimm?" I asked Rosé in the tone of an inquiring teacher. I had a lesson to impart.

Rosé hesitated. She sat cross legged on the wooden floor of the inn room we rented out. Shini was comfortable and it was right smack in the middle of Match. The island just south of Solitas north of Sanus. It was here where we crash landed, Neo and I. And it was here that I picked up my new apprentice.

She sat quiet in contemplation, she knew that I wasn't rushing her. But that I did indeed expect an answer.

"It has some means of getting past the walls. Like flying," she answered at length. To which I nodded.

"And we've gone over some of the Grimm in this area. Which ones match that description?" I pressed her further.

"Stymphalia. Or Nevermore. Or even a Manticore," she answered. "Those are the ones you told me about that can fly and live around here. Am I forgetting anything?" She wondered.

"Not really. So we know what kind of Grimm it is and we know it's hunting habits. The only thing left to do is actually kill it. That's probably the easy part."

Neo sat back on one the beds. Relaxing and content, she saw no need to be involved in this little exercise which suited me just fine. This about Rosé and teaching her to think critically.

"How does one set a trap for a flying Grimm? Something land based I can understand but if it can fly how do we pin it down and kill it."

"You and I use dust since we don't have guns. And my powers let me fly when I so choose."

"You can fly?!"

"I can. It's a part of my semblance," I lied in part. I didn't find it necessary to teach her about magic beyond dust. "Besides if it's something big it'll have a den nearby. There will be signs to follow. Come on. We need to resupply on dust crystals and track this bad boy down."

I stood to leave the clean inn room. Neo sat up. "Don't trouble yourself Neo. We'll be back. This is just training for Rosé. You just kick back and relax."

Neo leaned back and gave me a thumbs up on the bed. She certainly looked at ease and was not going to do anything more than she had to while resting from traveling. It was I who decided to take on an apprentice, not she. It would be wrong of me to force any duties upon her although I would ask favors. From friend to friend.

We left the inn and exited down paved streets. It was raining lightly, just a spring sprinkle. The sort of rain you hardly noticed. It left a pleasant aroma on the breeze however. And with the sky slightly overcast there was plenty of relaxing quiet shade. Rosé inhaled deeply the clean air in a big sigh.

We entered a square where several streets converged. A woman was selling thread behind a counter. Another had rows of pastries set out and they polluted the air with a sweet smell. With Rosé following close behind me, I waltzed up to a man who had dust crystals on display under a pane of glass. Above us was a flickering arc light which shone down upon the crystals. Dust crystals always seemed to glow unnaturally with a bit of light.

This wouldn't be cheap. Unlike Atlas under embargo there was no over supply here in Sanus. But there was plenty of demand. Prices were high. Especially for the sort of pure whole crystals I preferred and was teaching Rosé to wield. She was coming along with that aspect of her training just fine. She was impatient with herself but I knew better.

"Burn and shock. Uncut," I ordered.

"How many?" He asked, reaching under the display case in front of him to palm several crystals. He did so without looking away from me. He must know by memory where his dust lay.

"Five of both. If you so please," I requested. He set the crystals on his counter before him and he named a steep price unflinchingly. I took him up on it anyways. I had known in advance how much it would be or at least approximately. I paid him and took them from him over the counter and placed the crystals in my deep pockets. I handed two of the burn crystals to Rosé who slid them into her belt for safekeeping right beside her double edged blade.

"Is dust always so expensive?" Rosé asked me. "That seemed like a lot. And I'm probably going to waste some more training with them. I'm sorry. I just can't seem to get the hang of it completely."

"You will. I believe in you. And it serves a purpose and it's only a lot for nonhunters. For us it's part and parcel. And it's usually not so expensive but there is an embargo from Atlas going on. All the crystals must come from local mines at the moment. That costs more. But it's not a big deal. Don't trouble yourself over it."

We walked along a narrow badly lighted path past shrubs and lean trees with benches to either side of us before a little park and garden. It was raining a little heavier now and people were rushing about to avoid it. They had hoods drawn up and rain coats on with umbrellas over their tops as they bustled to and fro. We had no umbrellas and we're getting ready to venture out from town.

"If it's a big old Grimm it'll have a lair to it. A place to retreat to."

"A home?"

"Not really. The Grimm aren't like people or animals. They only care about such places so long as it helps them destroy things that we make. That's their nature."

"I don't quite understand," Rosé frowned.

"You will. It'll be better to show you once we've found it. It's a flying Grimm and all the people it killed were to the north so it probably nests down in a cave up in the hills."

"Back the way we came, then."

"Or there abouts. It's where we'll start looking at least. Come on. We'll need to set out early and be back by nightfall. We'll leave the horses here and go by foot."

We had done her theory work. It was time to put the things I hoped that she had learned into practice. There would be no substitute for hands on experience for the real thing and I would be there to back her up along the way. This was the real learning opportunity and the first real test. Everything else had been baby steps. Now I was dropping her into the pool to see if she could swim.

That was the real advantage to this apprenticeship thing. I would be there to save her if she started to drown. This time, at least. I wouldn't always be there to save her but I hoped that I wouldn't have to be. I hoped that my lessons would suffice and she would live a long happy life as a hunter. That was an oxymoron, perhaps. But maybe that was just me.

The bruises I had welling up all over my body weren't getting better. Where they showed up they stayed longer and were signs that I was starting to just outright bleed internally. I was dying. I got deep pains in my chest. I felt in my bones that my time was growing shorter. And my lifestyle, one of activity and travel, would only wear down on me. I didn't feel young anymore. And I knew that I had to do what I could before my time came.

"Cloud? Did you have a lot of friends at Beacon?" She drew her eyebrows tight and stared at a point in front of us hard. She stared with distant focus like she was trying not to forget something important.

"More than I did at any other point in my life," I answered the personal question easily and without any modesty. "Why do you ask?" It sounded important to her and I was a touch curious as to her point.

"Well… I just thought that maybe that was part of the appeal of it. To me at least. Because of my… because of my position I haven't had the opportunity to make many friends. I'm hopeful that I will if I get into Beacon when it reopens." Her cheeks went rosey and her silvery red hair drifted in the slight breeze. I wondered if it got in her face and bothered her. Weiss kept her hair pinned or pulled back. Ruby kept her hair short. Pyrrha always wore a ponytail. I suppose Yang let her mane out and flow all over and it never seemed to bother her. Blake too let her hair loose for a time.

Her position? Perhaps as a noble man's daughter she didn't have the childhood she should have. Weiss suffered like that, too, after all.

"You'll make good friends. You're a young sweet girl. You just have to let yourself. You understand me?" I affirmed.

"Yes… no. I don't believe so," she looked away from me and wouldn't meet my eyes.

"I hope you will. Don't close yourself off, put in effort, and give it time. You'll make your share of friends that way. That's how it's done. I used to not know. Now I do. And with that, then, let's be off. We have work to do."

She gave a slow and firm nod. She was ready.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We traveled up into the hills to the north of Shini. The hills were quiet and unperturbed by the soft rain which fell through the budding leaves and landed on the grass carpeted ground. There were rocky outcroppings and the hiking put a strain on the calves and knees but it didn't bother me. I could tell Rosé was tiring but she would grow stronger with time. Time, ever against me, was on her side at least. She had the time she needed to develop herself and become the blooming huntress she could be.

The secret truth was that anybody could become powerful. Anybody could do what I did and grow from nothing. If a waste of a wretch like me could become powerful enough to take Cinder Fall on then Rosé could become a hell of a huntress.

We found the first den and Rosé was shocked by the cavern. There were old weapons and bones here but I had seen it's like before. It didn't come as such a horror the second time I saw things like it. As with all things, repetition made it easier and even a little boring.

"All these people…" she trailed off looking on in something like dread.

"More than all these people. There's always more," I murmured quietly but my voice echoed in the dank crevasse such that she must have heard me clearly.

I stared down at a clear foot print and we were careful not to disturb it.

"Well? What kind of creature is it?" Rosé asked as she too stooped over the print in the dusty floor.

"It's a Manticore. An old one, too. We have to find it and kill it before we move on to the next city. We can't leave something like this behind. It'll tear these people up. It's got experience so even other hunters aren't safe. It's our responsibility."

"But couldn't it kill us too?"

"Of course. It certainly could. That's the job, however. But don't you worry. Even amongst huntsmen I am strong. We'll slay the beast and move on with our travels. It's only a miracle it hasn't killed more people. It must be distracted or have a wide range. Come on. I'm going to show you how to set up a land mine with a dust crystal."

She watched me carefully as I trapped the den with the makeshift explosive and buried it in the soft red sand.

"If it's not here then where is it?"

"Out hunting. Killing. Or perhaps we are fortunate and it's in another den hiding from the sun. Monsters are like that."

"But you don't think so. You think it's out killing people. Don't you." She saw through me into my pessimism. It disparaged her in part. I… I didn't want her to inherit that from me during this mentoring process. My world view was indeed more than jaded. I would rather see more of Ruby's optimism in the world, however. If only she could be here to balance me out.

I sighed. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it isn't. There's no way for you and I to be sure but I will not lie to you. A monster like this is out there at this very moment destroying the lives of innocent people in all possibility so it may as well be true. We should probably operate that way. It's safer for us even though it is disheartening."

"Why? Why do the Grimm hurt us? What do they gain?" She wondered. They were good questions. She asked a lot of those - showing off her inquiring mind. I wished that I had more answers to give and that answers that I did have were more comforting. But I preferred harshly bitter honesty over sweet lies. And if those kinds of answers saved her life then it would be worth it. That was my philosophy on the subject. I took it with me everywhere I went. Maybe there was something wrong with me. What am I saying? Of course there is something wrong with me. But perhaps not this.

"No one knows, not for certain. Perhaps it is simply because they are monsters and so they do what monsters do and be what monsters are. That might be enough and all there is to it," I informed her with some hesitation.

"But we'll stop it. You and I. We're going to put an end to this beast and stop it." She didn't seem discouraged. There was enthusiasm and a strong will. Perhaps I had underestimated her verve and had misjudged her. She was, after all, not like me.

"We are," I told her. "Sooner rather than later if we can. And we will do all that we can."

"We're responsible for it now."

"We are," I repeated. "Only we can bring these people peace and safety."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We made our way back Shini by nightfall. It had stopped raining and was dark enough that we fumbled some in the hills before we made our way back to town.

I marched into the inn and took up my room. Neo was waiting still, she was patient as ever. But she did give me a questing glance.

"We didn't find it and kill it. Not yet. And we're staying until we do. Then we'll move on in our travels," I answered her silence with a parry. "At least another two days. If not longer. Get comfortable. Want to go out and drink?"

She nodded agreeably.

"Can I come?" Rosé asked. She looked between us imploringly. What the hell? I wasn't her father.

"Think you can handle drinking?" I asked genuinely. "Have you ever drank before?"

"Not really. That is I've tried some… I think I can handle it."

"Good enough for me. If you can handle monsters you can handle alcohol and who am I to say you can't? Come on. We'll have an evening."

As a trio we made our way to a bar. I ordered hard liquor for myself and something sugary for Neo and a bit of both for Rosé to try. She was a big girl now. Or she was going to be. People didn't remain children for long in our business. It was just the nature of the beast.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	109. Once Upon A Time VI

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I don't think I like drinking." Rosé informed me the morning after our stint of debauchery. She had drank nearly her fair share. Enough to try it out and see how she liked it.

"You didn't even drink that much," I returned. It was in my court to defend the act and she had less than a handful of shots and a few sugary drinks. She hadn't been truly drunk. Just enough to get buzzed.

"But I still feel a little sick anyways, plus all it did was make me sleepy." True to her words she didn't get anything other than tired while Neo and I played charades at the bar. I wouldn't like it either if it just made me drop dead exhausted.

I shrugged my shoulders. "It's not for everyone. I rather enjoy the vertigo. It reminds me that I'm alive. It's like I'm a bug pinned to a surface. It forces me to be here, in the present moment."

In a lot of ways I was becoming a masochist. I endured Mother's torments with a certain pleasure and I took pain and discomfort in an easy stride. I was fond of it like an old friend. It gave me a degree of high because it was an intense feeling. When my nerves burned it felt good nowadays. A tingle or a quiver of sensation rocked my pleasure-pain confused brain no matter the touch.

I dunno.

Maybe something was wrong with me. But when you're in constant pain you learn to live with it and, if you let yourself, you can even enjoy it. What was the alternative for me? I could choose to be miserable I suppose. Or I could love my pain and embrace it. So that's what I did. The gods are cruel but you can learn to live like a dog pinned by the tail to the ground.

I read experiments about what happened to monkeys when you set up electric traps for them to run across. Sooner or later the monkeys figured out which tiles would shock them and would avoid them. But if you set it up so that the tiles that would shock them were random they wouldn't bother after a while. They would just give up. I rather thought of myself like that. Pain came more or less randomly so I was bound to be shocked so to speak. But I was starting to like the sensation.

Mother had pressed the 'cause pain' button so many times that it had just sort of broken and didn't work anymore. It became impotent because I was used to it and it didn't matter. She also had fucked with my pleasure center a little so now that was all out of wack.

"Well I don't think it's for me for one. How anyone can like it is beyond me. But you use substances, don't you, Cloud? You like them." My student observed my weakness. It was true. I had an emotional and physical dependency on drugs of various sorts. I felt a deep craving for those sensations.

And why shouldn't I? It wasn't like I had long to live anyways. I may as well get my bang for my buck now while I was at it. It was unlikely that alcohol or smoking would kill me. I had other alligators to worry about before I drained the swamp.

"Don't pity me Rosé," I had too much of that. I had often been pitied before. By all sorts of people. I even suspected it in those closest to me. "I don't have the time or energy for it. Anyways it hardly matters. I'm a good huntsman despite that aspect of my life. I'm still dangerous even with it."

"So what happens now?" She asked. She was changing the subject at my terse telling off. She took the hint. She was a clever girl, this one.

"We go out hunting again. We'll check our trap and search for more and eventually we'll find the beast and kill. That's what happens now. Now we put in the legwork and use elbow grease."

"It seems… a little messy. Don't you think? There should be a faster way."

"Maybe it is a little," I replied, I agreed. If this could be sped up it would mean worlds and not just to hunters but also to the people they worked to save. "But we'll work as fast as we can. There's no shortcut to this. We have to find it by searching for it and we can only do that so fast."

"And if it's out there killing in the meantime? As you seem to think?"

"It's in the nature of the Grimm to not rest and to strike at humanity at every opportunity. I know of old Grimm that wait just outside of human settlements taking their time and watching for the moment to strike. This Grimm could be like that, just waiting. Or it could be picking off farmers. It'll do as much as it thinks it can get away with if it's a little wise."

"But not all Grimm have that wisdom. Some throw themselves at our walls and attack with abandon. This Grimm could be like that as well. And all the while we were drinking and relaxing. How could we? We have a responsibility. You said so yourself!" She had some heat to her voice. There was something like an accusation there. Was I doing enough? That was her point. But there was a lesson I could teach here. Some wisdom of my own to impart that would hopefully keep her alive.

"We can only do so much. We can't be everywhere at once and we can't kill every monster. To try would be suicidal. There's nothing to be done but our best and you know what?"

"What's that?" She demanded of me. So much spirit and fire in her that I thought it might leap out and catch me ablaze. But I stayed cool.

"We can't be like the Grimm and be unresting nor can we throw ourselves at them the way that they do at us. We have to take our time and be human and patient. We have to be even smarter than them and you know what else? Sometimes we have to run away. Sometimes we have to give up. Sometimes there are battles we can't win and we have to not try and live to fight another day because if you say you're going to fight all the Grimm or die trying you will absolutely die. If my partner had given up and ran from a battle she knew - _knew -_ that she could not win, she would still be alive. But she didn't. She died. She had that same attitude you do now of never giving up and never surrendering and she died for it. And after that she didn't save anybody else. You can't save anyone if you die and play by the Grimm's rules. You have to be smart, patient, and wise. Or not just you will die but everyone you could have saved will die. You have to think of the people you could go on to help and remember that you can't be everywhere at once and doing everything. People will die. You will lose. It's a constant uphill struggle and one day you'll come across something you just can't beat."

"So that's your advice to me? Give up? I'm supposed to be a hero," she returned after my long winded speech. I had to make this lesson stick. It was more important than any other that she could learn from me. It was this bit of wisdom which could save her life more than swinging a sword could.

"You're supposed to be a huntress. Heroes die. They do. I've gone on to save more people and kill more murderers than any other person who went to school at Beacon with me and probably every other school too. And it's because my partner made me run when she went off to die. If I had died then all those murderers would be loose and all the Grimm I have slain would still be around. All the people I have saved would be dirt right now. We can only do so much. We cannot wage total war like the Grimm can. We have to time our shots carefully. Do you understand me?"

Tyrian, Black, Cinder, Taurus, countless bandits, criminals, and monsters of all sorts would be out there this very minute if Pyrrha hadn't shoved me in that locker. I may never forgive her for that. But I had no choice but to live with it. I will never know how many people would have died if not for that moment. But it was probably at least dozens. I would go on to save dozens if not hundreds and thousands more before I finally kicked the bucket.

"Rosé," I began again when she looked away from me and sat on her bed in silence. "You will die from this job. In all likelihood. I will die from this as well. It will kill us. It's not really a matter of if, only when. That's what it means to be a hunter. You are fighting a losing battle and it will catch up to you. I don't want that for you. _I'd like it_ if you would reach an old age. _You will only do that_ if you pick your battles." I enunciated slowly. I let each word drip from my tongue. She reeled back a little.

"I thought that I…that you...your partner..." she trailed off. She stammered over and over - unable to finish her thoughts. I waited. I waited. But she never went on.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Some officials from the warden's office came by and gave us the news which brought us to our next stop. They knew where we were staying and delivered us that piece of knowledge. The Grimm had indeed struck out at a farm house on the outskirts of town at night. It left footprints and a partially destroyed house behind and a whole family gone. We went out to investigate. Not that there could be much point. The monster was long gone.

We walked straight into the house through a giant hole in the wall and ceiling from where the Manticore had torn it's way in to the building in the night.

We found the bodies. Grimm didn't need to eat. They didn't hunt for food. They just wanted to kill. They wanted to kill people and that was all there was to it. They had no other motivation and no other purpose. They just destroyed our creations with true abandon. We found bodies inside of the house. There were five of them in total. Two parents of middle age and two little boys and a dead young girl. I didn't want to think about their ages. I wanted that to not matter.

I paced through where they had been attacked in the night and torn into while they slept. The father had been ripped in half and was laying in two pieces. A shotgun lay next to him where he had fallen. It had been a vain attempt to defend himself and he had indeed fired a shot off based off the splatter of buck shot on one of the walls near where the Grimm had torn it's way into these people's home. The mother had been torn limb from limb and most of the little girl was simply gone and could not be found.

Rosé threw up at the sight of the mess. My stomach was harder. I had seen and caused my fair share of gore. I had developed a touch of sterner stuff to my guts. I gazed hard at one of the little boy's glassy dead eyes and took a long drag from my pipe. I let the nausea hit me and elevate me as I took the scene in. Then I tapped the ash out of my pipe on some of the brick of the house and let the ash fall into a flower bed with crimson and blue roses. The garden was well weeded and tidy with gorgeous flowers that spoke of someone with a green thumb.

Surrounding the farmhouse was the orchard. Rows of trees forming an unnatural and artificial forest. Then there were crop lands. Filled acres of potatoes and corn. But around the house there were lovely flowers. These people had lived. What would become of their land now? A whole family had been wiped out as though by the snap of a set of godly fingers.

The gods were cruel or apathetic. Look at what they had wrought and feel despair. We were always losing in the battle against the Grimm. Occasionally we took a little ground but it was temporary. Kingdoms had risen and fallen over the courses of centuries. Civilizations had been wiped out over and over. The Grimm lived forever. They did not age. What kind of god makes man then makes the Grimm,? Or, perhaps just as horrible, makes the Grimm then makes man? Only a cruel god would do something like that. Only a capricious god would make a planet ruled by monsters with a few humans as playthings.

Rosé recovered from the sight of the grisly scene with time. She had never seen something like this before. The closest was probably the den we visited yesterday. She recovered her wits if not her breakfast. I managed to keep mine down with a degree of practice. The smell of the corpses was already terrible and it was now mixing with the stench of vomit but if I leaned down I could smell the flowers and marijuana. The flowers and the 'flower' both at once.

"This happened while we were drinking and blowing off steam. It's so meaningless now. We could have done more," Rosé stated with a devoid tone. "You could have prevented this. I could have done something, anything, even. Anything would have been better than this."

"We couldn't have known to be here - at this farmhouse in particular at that particular time," I warned her against what she was feeling. "Remember what I told you before. Be wise. The Grimm struck randomly and intelligently. We must be wary. The monster had every advantage of time and space over us."

We left the farmhouse with the corpses and the rose beds behind us. Someone else would bury the bodies. Friends or relations would already be notified and a mortician would be summoned. Those were the duties of the wardens, however. Our job was to stop it from happening again. We had traps to set and a long day ahead of us. I had a feeling Rosé would have sleepless nights in front of her as well. She would get used to it. I had. Maybe I'm not a good example of healthy coping mechanisms or dealing with grief or even as a person in general, though. Maybe that made me a good hunter, if not a good person. Maybe it is better if she struggles with it. A good person would and Rosé seemed to be a good person.

She trembled a little as we walked away from the farm house. What was it that she shook with? I wondered about it and watched her out of the corner of my eye. Was it Rage? Disgust? Fear? She trembled with something but she remained silent. I didn't press her on it. She would have to be strong and she would have to do it on her own. I could only show her the way and besides, she had asked for this, even if she hadn't known at the time what she had been asking for. No one really did when they talked about hunters. But she was determined to be one.

This was the sort of experience her peers at Signal and other combat training schools wouldn't get. They'd be trained in combat and they would know about their share of monsters as well. They would have the best tutors and years of time to absorb it all and become the best they could be before Beacon initiation. They would have all of that and more in all likelihood.

But with me she would get real experience. The sort that there would be no substitute for. I was tossing her into the thick of things and it was sink or swim time. This is the sort of thing which would let her surpass her peers with all their years and all their fancy tutoring. This is what would make her competitive with them.

She wanted to catch up. She wanted to do more whatever it took. She wanted to be able to make it into Beacon. This is what it would take. It was this that let me match then surpass my own peers who went to Signal and had that sort of training.

Wish granted.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-wg


	110. Once Upon A Time VII

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We marched down by the Yaru River on our hunt. The sun shone down on our faces as we marched a little east in the morning. I raised my hand to shield my eyes as we walked. Rosé was quiet and occasionally she shuddered. She was thinking about the bodies - the dead children. Every step we took I could tell she was thinking about it. She had her skirt drawn tight over her hips and she stared straight forward in a distant expression. She was restraining herself.

"Did you decide to name your sword?" I asked her as we crested a hill with willow trees on our right by the bank of the river. I wanted to put her mind off of it, if only for a moment. It wasn't good to brood about the dead or what could have been. I did it all the time and I was miserable for it. When I thought about Pyrrha or the time I accidentally killed someone - the first time - it was enough to drive me mad.

"My sword…" she trailed off deep in thought. I threw her the line and tried to pull her out of it. "Falchion. I want to call it Falchion," she informed me.

"That's a good name for a sword. A fine name. Have you given any thought to where you want to go with it?"

"What do you mean?" I had her attention - a little, at least.

"Well in terms of mechashifting. It's fine for now but a hunter needs some versatility. You can make it so that it's also a gun. Like an assault rifle for example."

"What's wrong with the way it is now?"

"Nothing is wrong with it. Like mine is also a shield and a broadsword. The shield helps me deal with gun fire. Though my ability to fly helps."

"Yours isn't also a gun. I don't see why mine needs to also be a gun either. A sword is plain but I think it suits me."

"If that's your preference there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that it could be and do more. Let your tools do the work for you. That sort of thing. If a plain sword is a perfect fit then it's a perfect fit. I'm just asking if it feels like a perfect fit to you."

"I think it is. It… it could be a touch longer. And I don't like the guard very much. But I like it just being a sword."

"We'll get something a little better fitted to your preferences before Beacon."

"You really do believe that I'll get in," she observed. She stared at me out of the corner of her eye.

"You're progressing well with dust and with your sword play. You know a bit about Grimm and only more all the time. Hunters are made out here not in schools. It's where I really developed myself. Under me you'll get wisdom and experience you wouldn't at a place like Signal or other prep schools. I think you've got a good shot at it," I defended my position rather firmly.

"What about other people who are serving as apprentices. Won't they get similar experience? Aren't I still behind."

"To be sure, you're still behind, but we'll just work harder than they will and I'll be tossing you into uncomfortable situations. Other masters probably won't do that. You'll have an edge."

"Like this morning - the bodies…"

"Like at the farmhouse this morning. It was important for you to see that. Do you know why?"

"To get used to it?" She was unsure and it came out like a question.

"In part. But also so that you understood what we're up against. You asked me what the Grimm are and now you're seeing it. This is what they can be and can do to us. This is also what we as hunters have to deal with and like you said - get used to. It's important that you know and understand the enemy and what they are capable of. It's important for you to know why we fight them."

"I think I understand. And I think I understand you a little better now, too."

"Me? How so?" I wondered.

"You said the gods are cruel. I know why you see them that way now. You must have been through a lot at Beacon. And after probably too. You said you developed out here in the wild. In the Grimm lands. You must have seen a lot of horrible stuff. Some of the advice you give me just seems so pessimistic but now I get it a little better. And I understand you better too. How many lives have you seen destroyed like at that farm house? How many bandits and murderers and who knows what else? This is what you want me ready for. You're genuinely afraid I might die; I probably will die hunting something too big for my boots. Is that how most hunters die?"

"They go out on missions and just never come back, a lot of them," I muttered. "We never find the bodies. After black out day - in Mistral - dozens of hunters died and went missing. They just never returned. Something made them all bite it. That's what usually happens. I really don't want that to happen to you as well. So if it takes seeing some awful shit to keep you alive then it'll be worth it. So yeah. Most hunters die that way and we really do drop like flies when it comes down to it."

"We're losing to the Grimm. I see that now. It's a war and we are losing. How do we have the time to fight one another? During the great war all that negativity must have brought the Grimm in droves and all they while we were bleeding one another out. There's not that many of us."

"Who is us?" I wanted clarification.

"Hunters. And people in general, I suppose. What's the total population? Seven million? Maybe eight? And most people live in the four big cities. The rest are scattered in the wind. Like leaves from a tree. We could all die. Every day. Every single day we are on the verge of losing the war forever. That's terrifying. How do you live with it?"

"You just sort of have to live with it. You don't really have a choice. Well, there's suicide and a lot of hunters do need psychiatric care. We're under a lot of stress and we have a lot of power. If and when hunters snap it can be devastating. Not just to themselves but to all the people they could hurt."

"How many resources are devoted to the psychological care of hunters?"

"Quite a bit. I… up in Atlas I was hospitalized over my condition. I went on a tear."

"You? Even you? What did you do?"

"I killed a bunch of criminals and murderers. I even hurt some people who worked for Atlas Security. It was at a pretty low point in my life. I hurt a lot of people and they just couldn't stop me. I have some power behind me. I really tore it up. On my bender, in Mistral, I took on a gang lord and his whole private army. I slaughtered them."

"That's not so bad. It's just criminals and bandits right? Right?"

"I hurt a lot of people because I could and they couldn't stop me. I had fun doing it. That's pretty bad. It's about as low as you can get."

"But you still killed bandits back in Winhill."

"I tried to make it different. I try not to like it. The power I can have over other people and the rush of ending a life."

"But you do like it. Don't you," it sounded like an accusation and by all accounts it was.

"Yeah. I like my boot on their necks. I like killing monsters and bandits. I enjoy the power I have now over people and Grimm. Most people - I think - enjoy having dominion over things, but most people couldn't slaughter an entire village if they wanted so it's less of a problem for those people. But in someone like me it's an issue."

"Because you have that power. And what about Neo?"

"She's a criminal - a thief and a murderer. And she's my friend. I'm no better. I've killed people for sport. Don't be like me. Learn from me. Especially from my mistakes. Rise above. Power corrupts the user."

"And you have a lot of power. I don't think I want to be a huntress as much as I used to."

"Yeah. Me neither. But I am one now and I can't imagine doing anything else."

"You could retire."

"I really couldn't. One way or another I'm tied up in this business. There's no escaping this for me. I have to fight. I'm too good at it to not. And there are things that would drag me back into it. Whether I like it or not this is the life for me."

"I think I understand."

"You're well on your way to becoming a good huntress. You're on your way to surviving. Most of your peers aren't. They are going to die. My whole team from Beacon is dead now. Except for me. All I have left is this wisdom and I try my best now to pass it along to you and try and do some good in the world before I finally bite off more than I can chew. It's the best we can do. It's the best that _I_ can do. And I'll never know if it will be enough because in all likelihood you will out live me. I throw myself head first into some of the most dangerous situations on the planet and I've always come out alive even if I didn't win. By chance, mostly. I wouldn't say that I'm particularly lucky, however. I got a good team and made it into Beacon and I got a partner who was there to train me and look after me. I got my aura unlocked. I got lucky in a lot of ways, I suppose. But you can't count on luck. And the times I didn't get lucky people I cared about got hurt or died or worse."

She stared at me. Silence stretched between us like a gulf at my confession.

"I'm sorry," she said at length.

"Don't be. Just… survive. That'll be enough."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We found another den. It was littered with bones and weapons wedged in the dust. A thousand trophies of the battles the Grimm had won and then returned here to heal.

This time Rosé planted the landmine under my supervision with a yellow shock crystal.

"I think I hate these places. I think I hate the Grimm," Rosé decided.

"Just don't let it blind you to what the Grimm are capable of and I think that's a good attitude to have." I kicked a sword in the dust.

There puddles of black tar like ooze - Grimm blood - on the walls and floor of the large den.

"Let's get a move on. We'll go back and check the den we trapped yesterday and see if it's been by there. We might have gotten lucky." I turned to leave the den behind. All that was here was dust and bones. This place was a grave in part. I wondered if I would be buried or cremated or what would happen to my bones once I had finally rot away. Or I suppose something else might get me first. That was always a possibility. Those people were once what I was now. What those bones were now I will be. I left the momento mori to itself and let it be silent as a tomb.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was late, the sun was low, and we heard the explosion rather than saw it as we approached the den. Rosé gave me a look. I gave her a firm nod. Then we started sprinting in the direction of the trapped first den.

We caught the Manticore there. One of its legs and part of it's wing had been blown clean off on its left side. It let out a furious roar and when it tried to take off and escape with a flap of it's might forty foot span wings it collapsed back to the ground.

"Use your dust!" I ordered.

Rosé reached to her belt and pulled a crystal free from it's harness. She crushed it and threw a wave of fire at the creature which caught it's hair ablaze. I struck it with a thunderbolt next. With a pause I activated my semblance and charged.

It swiped at me and I did a long back-flip over the clawed swipe. I slashed deep into its paw and ripped into flesh with my broadsword. Rosé let out a scream and charged. She ducked under where the tail stabbed at her and she sliced up into it with Falchion.

She continued to shout. She sounded both afraid and angry in her scream. She ran up and stabbed it deep in the chest. It roared and flicked her away with its paw and she slammed back into one of the walls of the den with a noise of pain leaving her lips.

I flew and sliced into its remaining wing and I cut it off with a swipe of the titanic blade. It howled out from the lion like face with large canines and rows of sharp teeth.

Then I octa-slashed it. I cut deep into its body and chest in a steady rhythm. It tried to hold up the stub of its left paw to hold me off but it was no use. I cut my way through that too. With one final thrust and a look dead in it's red eyes that met my blue ones, it died. I hoped it died in pain and horribly but that was probably not how the Grimm work. They probably don't feel pain like humans do. There was no way to revenge the suffering it brought on people back to it. That was just another way the Grimm had an edge over us I suppose. In the end they got that little victory. I hated them for that.

I flew over to where Rosé was getting back to her feet. She rubbed the back of her head with her hand.

"It's gone?" She asked. "It's dead?"

"Yeah. It's gone and dead. It'll never kill anyone else ever again. This is finished and we can move on ourselves. You did well."

"I got beat up. Nothing else. You did all the work."

"But you got back up. That matters. It especially matters. Come on. Let's go get dinner. I'm famished."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	111. Gainsborough I

**In which Cloud pulls women. Oh Cloud. When will you stop? You are just incorrigible. Isn't two or three enough? Can't you help yourself?**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Rosé PoV)

I ate dirt. Fairly hard, too. With a low groan I pushed myself back up to my feet. Cloud just stood opposite me with heavy boots in the small grass meadow menacingly. He had a giant chunk of metal on his back, his shield, and he held a four foot long longsword in one hand easily. He was tall and broad at the shoulder with a set of narrow hips. He cut a dangerous figure and as a hunter he was even more dangerous than he looked.

He was beating me. I suppose I had asked for it but it hurt all the same. It didn't make the pain of my ass whopping any less so to know that I literally asked for this.

I'd rarely seen him fight and when he did truly get down to business he became a hovering blur of wicked speed and enormous strength. His skill with his blade was unbelievable. I had chosen well for a teacher. He seemed to have wisdom beyond his years, he was a font of experience in dealing with monsters and people. And he was so young, still. He was practically my age. Just under five years separated us. Not so long when you thought about it.

He also had Neo who had helped train me a little too. But mostly she just beat up on me. Cloud had convinced her by calling it a personal favor (those were his exact words he said to her) for him so sometimes I went up against her as well. Cloud said having diversity in my opponents was a good thing. That way I wouldn't be just learning his own habits and would have to think on my feet. He was big on that.

Still, I don't think Neo liked me very much. She put her heels on me whenever we fought and dominated me completely. Cloud at least took it nice and easy on me and only really punished unsafe overextensions hard. The rest of the time he let me work myself over. Against him I worked offense and against Neo I worked terrified defense.

That led me to where I was now. Eating the grass over and over again as I tried to get in on him.

"You're doing well," he encouraged. "The point isn't to actually get a hit on me."

"Yeah well I'd certainly like to for once," I grumbled. He just laughed, throwing back his head slightly and chuckling deeply. I was glad to be a source of entertainment for him. Ever so glad.

I readied my weapon, three feet of Titania edge. My training wheels blade, Cloud had called it. I was fond of it all the same. Cloud lowered his. Crocea Mors, he named it. His weapon had personality and an identity. It gave him quite the cutting figure with the too long red handle on the far end of his instrument.

I ran at him and took a diagonal swing he blocked then he very slowly and transparently riposted with a sideways cut which I quickly turned my blade to block. Though he had hardly swung, or at least appeared to have hardly swung, the blow sent vibrations up both of my arms and I staggered back a half step before I regained my footing.

"Remember, blade foot forward," I switched my stance at his words, shifting so that my right hand which held the blade was matched by my right foot being forward. It gave me more range, according to him. Range was a good thing. I held my left hand like it was paralyzed across my chest as he had taught me.

I gave him another slash and he stepped back and easily blocked it. I hacked at him again and once more he shifted his blade into a roof block. Then he twisted his pommel towards my face and I quickly ducked and stepped away before he could hit me. Flinching was natural. It was good. So long as you didn't let it blind you then it could save your life. His words, not mine.

He came at me with a slow telegraphed attack from on high and I shielded under my sword and let the blades ring together with a _clanking_ noise. Then he pushed into my guard and shoulder checked me to the ground. He somehow made it gentle but it hurt all the same.

"You lost your footwork and became unsteady. Keep your feet shoulder width apart all the time. It'll make it harder to knock you over and stop you from losing your balance. Footwork, footwork, footwork."

I huffed my hair out of my face and sat up for a moment to catch my breath. He allowed me to and rested his blade against his shoulder easily. I just took in gulps of air and let my soreness flow over me. He looked relaxed while I was flustered.

He was a good teacher and always seemed to know when to push and when to relax. He had a certain ebb and flow that allowed him to mentor well without ever overstepping. He should be a teacher full time. Sure he had his weaknesses but they didn't get in the way of his work. He indulged in substances but he was under a lot of pressure. It was slightly forgivable, in a roundabout way. I found I could ignore that and focus on his positive side.

If only he wasn't also so damn mysterious. He sent a letter to certain friends and there was the intrigue of what had happened to his team and partner from Beacon. Neo wasn't it. She was a different friend. It made one wonder and think. Then he said he fought in the battle of Beacon's fall on black out day but then he just went into the wilderness and became a real hunter. He was so mystifying but he was a good man. He saved people's lives without asking for anything in return. He was the spitting image of what a huntsman was supposed to be. With a big sword and handsome face and hair done up in a spikey fashion. It made one think. And it didn't always make one think appropriate thoughts.

We were training just outside of Gongaga. We needed a ship to carry us and our horses across the small channel to the Sanus mainland and off the island of Mark near the continent of Solitas. We had stayed in the city for several days now while we looked to book passage to the mainland. Cloud had money, it would seem. He explained that hunters really had no trouble getting the stuff. He even said that it was almost too easy. I hung on his every word. They could all be useful one day, he was so rich in experience and he had been all over the world. How cool was that? He was so lucky to be well traveled. I was jealous. Traveling was a part of the appeal of the job. A huntress could and should travel the world.

The whole while Cloud had never saw fit to stop my training and now that we didn't have to travel all day it was all the more intense and he had started working me over personally. He swore that I was improving and that I would notice it with time but that I just didn't see it. Sure I felt my aura but I didn't feel like a fighter just yet. Not like Cloud or even Neo. And Neo was dangerous; I could tell that much. She just wasn't _as_ dangerous as her interpreter was. Cloud was a menace. When I saw him fight he flew and with two quick strokes of his six foot blade he'd cleaved the Beowulfs in two. He was a walking talking nightmare in battle.

The long green grass of the little clearing rustled in the breeze and I took a moment to just listen to the wind. The midday yellow sun beat down on me harshly in the cool spring air. Then I got up again and raised my silvery and bronze blade. He was going to beat me and it was going to be easy for him, almost mockingly so. But it really wasn't mocking. He was certainly toying with me but only because if he destroyed me over and over again I'd learn nothing. That wasn't how training worked. You couldn't just beat someone up over and over again. They would learn nothing but pain. Cloud only punished me when he thought what I was doing was particularly an affront. Messing up my footwork, for example. Hacking without purpose or aim, for another. Those were the times he'd strike me and brutally at that. He was so strong and fast. And, get this, his semblance only made him stronger and faster. He was beyond superhuman. I just had to hope that not all hunters were as good as him or I would never catch up to people training at schools like Signal.

So far he has been good to me. He'd been a caring guide and showed me all the ropes. He taught me what he knew about Grimm and people so I would be ready to fight them. He showed me the weak points of Grimm and he was trying to teach me how to _find_ the weak points of people. That was much harder. He wanted me to have no illusions about whether or not I'd be fighting people. He really wanted me to know that. He wanted me prepared. That was another thing he really tried to drive home into my skull. Being a hunter wasn't glamorous. It was hard, brutal, and dirty work. It came at a price.

I hadn't been sure I was ready to pay that price. But now, seeing the strength with which Cloud carried himself, I could see myself doing it.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I made my way through busy streets. A dray went by before me, drawn by a steady breathing horse. The driver held the reins attentively even though he looked relaxed and let his feet dangle aimlessly. My way was blocked by several women in a hurry and I let them pass first. I was in no real rush.

I came to the top of a steep street around which there was a small square of open stalls. I smelled baked goods and flowers wafting on the breeze from the stalls. There was variety to the vendors and I looked between them for a moment deciding.

"Excuse me, Miss?" I looked down at where a small voice got my attention- I was walking through Gongaga to get lunch for my little traveling group on my master's orders. It was a little girl I saw when I looked down. She was in a tiny red and white dress with brown hair and bright brown eyes. She was adorable. She had a pink ribbon in her shoulder length hair to tie the look together as well as her crop of hair.

"Um… yes? What can I do for you?" I looked around. I caught sight of a lady whose hat was covered in flowers. I saw a man who was laden with buckles. A young man not much older than my master hurried by with a walking stick. Was she alone? I couldn't spot anyone who had their attention on us in the little market square I was in. Where was this young girl's mother or father? Was she out all alone, truly? A young girl like this needed someone looking after them. People walked past me on the street right and left. They bustled about with their heads down and they parted around the two of us as though we were big rocks in a creek of flowing water.

"Are you a huntress?" The girl asked childishly with that sort of boundless curiosity some children have that made them ask the obtuse. But when they did so it was in such an endearing way that one could not help but to answer.

Carriages on delicate wheels were traversing the street and scurrying past us pulled by horses. I tugged the girl out of the street and into the shadow of a building.

"Not yet. But I'm going to be. I'm still learning," I explained. "I have a master that I'm learning from."

"I could tell because of your sword. Is it sharp?" My sword and my outfit should have been a dead give away that I was a huntress or at least that I was a huntress in training. My clothes were too bright and my weapon was custom. It wasn't like some common guard's mass produced tools.

It was indeed sharp. It hung on my belt like a razor. Titania held an edge like no other metal. I bent down to the little girl's level. "It's very sharp," I told her. "Sharp enough to shave with."

"Is your master nice or mean?"

"He's nice, I think. He can be a little harsh but that's only because he wants me to stay alive. He worries about me."

"You look like an angel," the girl whispered with big eyes looking up at me. "That's how I knew you were a huntress. You're too pretty to not be."

I blushed and dropped my mouth open slightly. I worked my jaw and stared at the little girl. She spoke with that sort of giddy honesty some kids have. The compliment was too earnest to be taken as any kind of flattery and so must be genuine. Some honesty from children was raw like that.

"Where are your parents?" I asked at length. I had finally found my tongue after a moment of searching for it and I worked my voice like it was rusty. "Are you out here all alone in the city?"

She nodded. "We live near the edge of the town. I know what street I live on," she spoke proudly. "Dad is in the dust mine and mom's working her stall. I'm not really supposed to leave the house. I'm supposed to do my reading. But then I saw you. A real huntress!" She spoke quickly and excitedly. It was contagious and I smiled at her. I couldn't help it. "Do you fight monsters?" She asked me. She only stopped talking to breath and even then it was a close thing.

"Sometimes," I answered vaguely on purpose a little for the intrigue. "I've only killed little ones so far. My master has killed much bigger creatures than I have. What's your name?"

"Coral," she answered. Then she looked past me. "Is that him? Is that your teacher?"

I turned and saw Cloud moving through the street. He was tall and broad and he had an enormous sword on his back; and people parted before him with some haste. One look at him and it was clear he was a hunter and not just because of his weapon.

"That's him. That's my mentor. He knows a great deal," I spoke kindly and sort of hushed though I wasn't sure why. It wasn't as though Cloud could hear me from there and even if he did what I said didn't really matter. I figured the girl, Coral, was mind tricking me somehow.

"He's _so handsome_," Coral stretched the words out with a bit of awe. I blushed a little. I thought the same way. "Is he very strong?"

"Very much so," I told her with my cheeks flushed.

"Do you think of him often?"

I did but that was none of her business. What I thought about belonged to me. Not this mind reading little girl.

Coral looked back at my face and narrowed her eyes. "You like him!" Drat! It had that same brutal honesty to it that couldn't be denied or dissuaded.

"Shshsh," I hushed her. Or tried to at the very least. I was sure my face had turned as red as my hair. Maybe even more so.

"Is it because he's your teacher? Some girls like that. I totally understand."

"Let me buy you a snack from one of the stalls." I tried to change the subject and fast. My master had given me more than too much money for food and I could spend a little on the girl without him noticing and he probably wouldn't mind to start with. He had a certain apathy towards money. The sort that came from spending and earning too much of the stuff.

"Tell me about him? What's he like?" The girl would not be distracted by my bargaining. She was curious about the tall striking hunter.

"Well- he's… that's to say… he's very mysterious," I managed at length.

"Ooh," she pressed. "Mysterious is nice. It's dashing. What else?"

"And he's patient and knowledgeable and that makes him a good teacher. He's also kind. He saves people with no self interest. His character is good."

"No wonder you like him. It's like something out of a romance book," the girl blurted. "I read a lot at home," She over shared.

I sighed a little. The thought had crossed my mind as well. I mean, a young girl with her dashing huntsman teacher going off together to slay monsters and accomplish her dreams? It was something someone would write about and give a happy ending to. I could imagine reading it myself. Sure there was Neo but there really truly didn't seem to be anything romantic going on between the two of them. And yes, he had said his love life was complicated but he made his whole life seem complicated what with that business with a laboratory.

"Hush you…" I tried. I failed. "Please let me buy you something to eat. Then I'll walk you home. I'll tell you some stories about him?" Not that I had all that many. "What do you say? Deal?"

Coral grinned like a cheshire cat. "Deal." She held out a tiny hand for me to shake on it.

I did.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	112. This Scenery I

**I'm getting on fifteen chapters ahead of schedule. I have to slow down or else I lose the flexibility to respond to healthy critiques. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

It was raining hard when we crossed the channel from Match to the Sanus mainland. The vessel was made of metal and water _pinged_ off the tin roof of the boat and the lightning made the horses uneasy. I was told that strong storms were common up here during the spring. Out in the sea it was pouring such that it seemed as though there was as much water above us as below and beside us.

The boat rocked and stirred up my stomach. The waves shook us and my guts turned over and over. I was lucky to hold down my breakfast over the journey. There was a city on the other side of the channel from Gongaga. It was Costa Del Tormenta on the other side. It was decently sized, maybe a few thousand people, and could probably use a hand or two. But we wouldn't be staying. We had to be moving along. So we set ourselves off once we arrived on the far side of the channel and kept heading south. That was where Vale was with our goals. Both Rosé's and mine.

I prepared and sent a letter to my loved ones. I wrote about the role I took on with Rosé. I struggled with it. I never knew what it was like to be as young as Rosé was. Not in any true sense. And she was going through more than she had thought she was asking for. She was becoming a huntress with all that entailed. It was a lot to put on a young girl. Ruby and Weiss would know better than I did how to be a huntress at that age. They had both lived and experienced it. Ruby was in Beacon by fifteen. I could only guess and postulate on the subject. It left me feeling unsure how to communicate with Rosé at times. Despite that I thought she was progressing well with her training. Mastering the blade was only one thing a hunter needed to overcome. They had to gain knowledge of the Grimm. They had to learn to fight and kill people as well as monsters. They had to conquer themselves most importantly. I could help with all but the last one. That Rosé must do on her own.

Not that I was an expert on mastering oneself. Or else I would still be in Atlas with my loved ones. I would be unafraid. I would be strong. I wasn't. I was cowardly and weak in the ways that mattered most. What good was the power to kill people and slay monsters if I couldn't use it? It was nothing but impotent rage. At least with Rosé I was doing something and passing things along. I was helping and genuinely doing good.

It still didn't lessen the weight of my sins. That I killed people and enjoyed it stuck out in my mind as an obvious problem with my mental state. I hurt people. I did it all the time. I even hurt the ones I claimed to love. Being with Rosé made me feel less monstrous. At least in part, I felt like a hero. Like I had dreamed about at Beacon. I wasn't a hero though. Except in an absurd way, perhaps.

I wish I could be the way that Rosé saw me. All of the good and none of the bad. It was unfair. I wrote all of that and my feelings into a bold letter and sent it off to Atlas. At least this time I had some semblance of contact with them. Last time had been rough. I had become an animal. This time I was more grounded. Like I was pinned to the earth. I was able to see myself and the harm I could do and I kept myself in check. I think the letters helped with that. They certainly helped me vent. Not that I wanted for ears. Rosé always listened to me and Neo was the sort you could really talk at. Still these private letters became a refuge for my thoughts and for the deep crisscross feelings I was trying to manage. I wrote a little about my victory over Mother and how she had nothing to threaten me with anymore since I was already a dead man. I had become numb to her torments. The pain center in my brain was broken. I found myself enjoying discomforts when I came across them. They felt good in a sick and twisted way. Anything to feel something intense.

I had heard of people who cut themselves for pleasure. I suppose I was a little like that except I didn't seek it out. I just accepted it as it arrived with welcoming arms. The chill of the rain and wind throbbed pleasantly in time with my heartbeat. I froze and I enjoyed it where the cold burned my flesh. Some wire was crossed. I liked the discomfort. I liked pain. I was twisted in my head.

There was something sick and wrong with me. I was never going to be normal or function correctly. We're products of our environment and my environment was fucked. The way I had been grown, the influences I had been under, all of that served to make me who I was. Those things were absolutely terrible. I couldn't hope for more. I was dying as we rode along. I was dying while I slept. And I was dying as I fought. I was growing more and more sick and I wasn't going to get better. Coming to terms with that was hard. This was the best I'd ever feel again because it was all down hill. And I didn't even feel that great now and it was only going to get worse. That burned me and I found I was unable to enjoy that pain. I didn't get any sick satisfaction out of it like I did the pain in my chest and guts. They were a comfort which kept me pinned neatly in my body. Without those pins and needles I might slip out and away from myself. I couldn't allow that. I had to keep myself together and focused on my missions. Find Merlot. Put a stop to him. Go to Mother. Put a stop to her. Kill my sisters. Then I would be free. I could slip away all I wanted. To the ends of the earth I could leave my body behind and set sail.

But not now. Not yet. Not while there was still work to be done. I couldn't die just yet and I did want to die. To be sure I did want that. I found myself desiring that which I feared. I was still sane. I feared death to a degree. But I wanted it. But then I also feared pain and I still wanted that too.

I was completely crossed up. I was all mixed up in my head and in my heart. I did good to spite my evil nature. The goodness in me only existed due to a rebellious hypocritical aspect of myself. That was it. That was the source of all my good intentions. And killing myself was something I didn't do out of malice as well. It was tearing me up. The paradoxes I was trapped in were enormous and held me firmly in tight clutches. All the good I did was performed out of ill will. That sucked. It hurt. It made my heart ache. At each moment I was certain that I could not stand it any longer. It felt unending even though I knew that it was. Yet it kept on going in a rolling fashion. It went on and on forever. Like a ball going downhill. Eventually I would reach the bottom. Eventually it would all be over and all this bullshit would be someone else's problem. That or nothing at all. I wasn't sure which was better. I think it would be best if I left nothing behind. But there was always something extra hanging on like a split fingernail. Bloody and irritating and always in the way. I hated that. But it was what I wanted to do. I wanted to leave behind something good. I was just afraid that anything I did would be marred by my nature. Was I handling Rosé's training well or was I setting her up to die? I tried to share the wisdom I had gleaned with her and I hoped it would be enough but in my heart I knew that I would fail. I was doomed to failure. It was in my nature. Rosé would not have a long and happy life. I could see her face growing harder and losing its youthful joy. I was to blame for that. It was my fault. I was even doing it on purpose.

I looked over at where she was clenching her jaw. Her expression was tight. Her eyes were withdrawn and they only seemed to be withdrawing more all the time. I was doing this to her. She claimed to want it but I had known what it would entail. She didn't. So was I doing the right thing by showing her the truth of the world? Even as it burned her she persisted that she wanted to keep going and be a huntress. She kept mustering on even though by now she knew what it would take from her. I had known and I had done it anyways. I was guilty of killing her innocence and childhood. I felt it as strongly as any other murder I had ever performed.

All this I pondered as we rode on our horses down a double split trail which could probably handle cars or trucks. It hadn't seen a motor vehicle in a while by the look of the undergrowth.

The rain fell in bucketfuls down on us but Rosé offered no complaint. Neo shuddered in the seat behind me from the seating cold which felt so good and fresh on my skin. I trembled as well but it was in a certain joy at my discomfort. The cold was awful and I wanted more of it. I loved the way it lapped at my skin and with each beat of my heart the tips of my fingers throbbed deliciously. It was so salty and it tasted so good going down. I was loving every minute of it. I felt like I was getting what I deserved. I was guilty. I was guilty damnit. I deserved punishment.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Cloud can we stop and make camp? I'm frozen to the bone."

"Yes. Absolutely," I agreed readily, for their sake not mine. I could be burning for all I cared.

I pulled my horse off the muddy tracks and we found a clearing where we could set up tents. We did so, working hard with numb fingers in the blistering rain. When I picked something up and clasped it tight it burned me due to the cold in my hands. My feet tingled delectably and my cheeks were rosy and frigid. I loved it. I loved the rain. I loved the cold. It was exactly what I wanted. I felt myself sopping wet getting cleaned and purified by that chill. It was so good. I laid down the tarp and staked down the tent and I helped Rosé tie off the horses. My fingers fumbled with the leather reins. They were seared through. The nerves burst like little fireworks in my skin.

It would never be enough. Nothing could ever undo the things I had done. I had killed my best friends. I never wanted to hurt the ones I loved the most but I had, and did, and was actively doing so. I needed to burn for that. I needed to be set on fire. This cold wouldn't do. I needed more. So much more. But how to start a fire in such a downpour? How was I supposed to strike a match and set myself ablaze? How could I ever be forgiven? If I trained a hundred huntresses like Rosé and each went on to live happy fulfilling lives, if they each lived for a long time, then it would still not be enough. Nothing I could ever do could unmake the past. My soul to go back and save them. If only I could return to those times and places I had made the most costly mistakes. I wished for more power. No, even that wouldn't help. More strength would do nothing for me. Even with all the strength I had now I was impotent. I could do so much more than I ever dreamed and it still wasn't enough. It still felt like it hardly mattered. It still felt so small and barely awake.

Maybe if I had more time I would be able to make up for the things that I had done. Maybe if I had more time I could learn to fight my Mother. If I had more time I could kill my father and I could actually save my sisters. But I didn't have that much time. I was constantly running out of it. I was in constant pain. I couldn't unmake the past and I couldn't control the future. If only I were on fire. That would set things straight.

Neo tucked herself in. It had grown late. The rain still smattered against the tarps of the tents in little _clacks. _Rosé forgo her training this evening and went straight to bed. She was too tired it would seem. I could hardly blame her. She needed time. And she was fortunate enough to have it. It was so precious and fleeting.

Eventually I changed out of my soaking clothes and crawled into my own sleeping bag. What fresh hell waited for me tonight? What terrible things would happen to my form while I slept? It was coming for me, of that there could be no question and no doubt. These terror nights were fit enough to drive me insane. Or more insane. Mother was growing more and more impatient and frustrated. She was losing her grip. I could feel it. I could practically smell it. She was going mad too. It was a two way street and we were both on it. She was as much my dark passenger as I was hers. It was a switch that flipped both directions and it was a pleasure and even a relief to know that I was the one causing that fissure. I was placing enormous pressure on her just as she pressed on me. She couldn't hide from me either. She set up a connection between our minds, an unholy union of ourselves which I ran across as well as she did. Burn with me, Mother. Burn us both whole. I can't get away from you and you can't get away from me. So let's burn together. You will be coming with me. You will be seared through. Burn with me. Burn it all.

If I can have no peace neither can you. You wanted this, didn't you? Mother? You wanted to be a part of me? Well, looks like you're getting your wish. And I shall destroy your mind with my own. Let my guilt and fear haunt you and burn you with it. Let my madness torch your brain.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	113. This Scenery II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

_Neo and I were on board a plane again together and there was a storm billowing outside. A gust of wind rocked the vessel and lightning hit us with metallic grinding noises and threw up sparks. I pulled at the bay door. _

_It wouldn't open. It refused. I pulled and pulled and pulled. But the door wouldn't budge. Neo looked at me imploringly as I tried to leverage our way out. We were going down, down, down. There was nothing I could do. We were going to crash. _

_Finally the door came free. Neo was yanked out by the vacuum and hurled into the hideous vortex of wind and sleet and lightning. Her terrified face was the last thing I saw before she was sucked away from me on her umbrella. And she was flung into the heart of the storm. _

_I watched in terror as her form disappeared into the mist in an instant. She was gone just like that. Then the plane hit the earth and I was tossed through the glass of the cockpit. The glass's raked at my skin and twisted metal tore into my flesh. I lay where I fell - paralyzed completely, and, unable to move the Grimm descended on me and tore into my body. My arms were torn off and all of my guts were ripped out by savage teeth and claws and I lay there and I took it. _

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I woke up from uneasy dreams. I need to stop being so scared. For a multitude of reasons really. It was drawing Grimm for one thing. The fear I felt... I couldn't be sure of the source. Was it me? Was it Mother? Was it both of us? She opened a back door into my mind and I had a door into hers as well. This fear was slicing both of us like a razor. It was a double edged sword. I wanted Mother scared. But I couldn't live and function with my fear dialed to eleven all the time.

I took Rosé on a jog and that helped clear my thoughts. I could feel it wipe my brain chemistry clean in a helpful way. I got a runner's high on top of a regular high and it was up there with the best drugs I had ever taken. It was good. It was also healthy for my dying body. At first when we started Rosé got blisters on her feet and she could barely keep up but after only a few weeks she was pacing well and her feet had become calloused.

That was all well and good but I still couldn't place my anxiety. Which was in turn a source of anxiety for me. It was troubling. Was Mother really _this_ scared? That might be concerning if something had her so frightened she couldn't think straight. What might she do? Or was it coming from me?

I had no idea. I reached out into the place that belonged to neither of us and to both of us. It was scary. There was so much fear there. It was coming from both of us. We were both scared. Mother, for all her ancient wisdom, had never been in this situation before with a wayward son. I for my own part was entirely in uncharted waters. That was always true for a mortal though. That was the human-faunus condition.

I didn't know whether to tighten up or relax and so I could do neither.

I knocked Rosé to the ground in a smattering of mud; the rain had left the ground a patchwork of puddles. We trained in a meadow with long grass and bright blue wild flowers off the beaten path. I let the rain fall down on me as I watched Rosé return to her feet and wipe the mud from her face.

Sometimes I wished that she would stay down. Sometimes I wished that she would say 'no more; I don't want this anymore; I want to go back home,' but she never did. She kept getting back up for more punishment and training and she took it all without complaint.

"You good?" I asked.

She just nodded and grit her teeth in a sort of snarl. Then she came at me with particular swings. Unfrustrated and unflustered, she swiped at me. I had long beat such things out of her. Frustration and floundering would do her no good. She knew that by now. Hopefully that attitude would be instinctual. It could save her life.

I showed little mercy and I was, in my own regard, a cruel and harsh teacher. She kept coming back for more. At times I felt certain I would discourage her and she would have had enough but it never came.

She swung low and I blocked with a loud _clang_; with her free hand she flung mud in my face. I swore and stepped back and she hit me across the chest with a shout of raging victory. I wiped my eyes and flattened her. She lay on the ground panting and smiling.

"Got. You." She breathed hard. She was beaming. Nothing could take that from her it would seem. She was too triumphant even as she lay with her silvery pink hair fanned out in the muck.

"You did. You cheated to do it. But it worked. Well done," I praised her as I wiped my face with my left hand. The mud was thick and gravelly. Congratulations were in order. She had worked hard and had to be creative to touch me. I prized those things in not just hunters but in people in general. She did a good job. Even if it got a little dirt in my eye.

"Just you wait. Soon I'll be good enough that I won't need dirty tricks to touch you," triumph roared behind her words. She was sure of it. And it was true.

"Soon," I agreed readily. Harsh training could do all things to a person. I was proof of that in some regard. Hard work couldn't be over valued. And her persistence in the face of training which should be putting her down would change her; already she had the glow of a huntress to her skin and body. Even the mud didn't manage to completely disguise that fact, covered as she was. Her transformation was transcendent to watch from the outside looking in and I had to wonder if this was what Pyrrha saw as she trained me.

Rosé was becoming superhuman. She had yet to unlock her own semblance but I felt it would be soon. Her mastery of her own aura was progressing at an incredible rate. Her sword play was just fine. It was nothing to write home about but it was far better than it was even so far as a week ago.

It was almost a religious experience for me to see it from the outside. It was changing me as well. I was forced to be wiser and more confident. I had to make decisions which would affect her for the rest of her training. I had to share the little wisdom I did have quickly and not just because I was dying but because she could die too.

It was transcendental to experience this. It gave me a certain sense of deja vu. It felt like I had been here before in some distant dream. I hadn't. This was new. Every moment was new and terrifying and more than just my own fate was in my hands. Destiny had touched me. It grasped me firmly and refused to let go with teeth sinking deep into my flesh.

I had so much to do. Rosé had far yet to go before she was even Beacon ready. I had to put a stop to my father and I had found no clues this far as to his next laboratory. I couldn't even be sure that it was here. What if he went back to Mistral or Atlas? What if he was in Vacuo? I had no idea. I just felt a strange confidence that even if I didn't find him in Vale I would find some sort of lead. That was important.

I helped Rosé rise from the muck and wildflowers and get back to her feet. She was tired. But she wouldn't stop smiling. It stretched from one ear to the next. She was on cloud nine. Her touché divided her history. There was before she got the touché and a new world after. And nothing could ever change that. There was no going back for her. Not in this, and not back to Vale as anything other than a huntress. She had already grown too far to stop now.

If I stopped teaching her, if I tried to save her life that way, then she would merely train herself at this point and she might do well at it. But not as well as if I stayed by her side and offered my guidance. Dismissing her now could kill her and it would be entirely my fault. I was so horrifically responsible. What a terrible thing to be, responsible. It weighed on the mind and body and soul with unmistakable gravity. My responsibilities to my loved ones, and friends, and to Rosé, now, and even to the world seemed to be growing and growing. Would it ever end? Or did the responsibilities only stop stacking up once you were stone cold dead?

I already knew the answer. At least a little in my heart of hearts. My duties to this planet would never stop amassing no matter how much I wanted it to stop. I felt that pang of fear. Mother? Is that you? Are you scared of me yet? I'm terrified of you. Do you share it with me? Am I you and are you me? Are we one or are you dominant? Do you even want to be? Do we have a choice in the matter? You probably never wanted this but Merlot set me up like a wind up toy and now I'm running away from your clutches. Can you stop me? Do you even want to try?

That gulf between us stretched on like an ocean. She erected barriers between our thoughts. I think she was tired of feeling how afraid I was. It wore you down until there was nothing else. I wielded that fear like a weapon. An unstoppable tool that sliced into both of our minds and perhaps into my sisters' too. It was the sort of panic that made you want to drop everything and run. I felt it all the time. Mother was tired of feeling it too now. That's why she was building barriers between us. Fear was my barrier. It was my weapon against her.

I felt it when she lowered her barriers tentatively and peeked into my mind with her black slimy tentacles. She found nothing but terror as she gazed into me. I looked right back at her.

_"Stop this… you'll drive us both mad…"_

_"I'm already mad. You're the only one in danger here. Leave my mind."_

_"I cannot. We are bound up in one another."_

_"Then be mad with me. We'll go crazy together."_

She receded and took her whispers with her. There was little she could do in the face of my terrors and apathy. She was forced to retreat and erect barriers as best as she could but it was no use. I threatened her levies with waves of fear. She couldn't torture me anymore. She couldn't make me more afraid than I already was. She had nothing to threaten me with. There were no more weapons available to her. She was now the one running from me in that ocean between us where neither lived and both survived. She had no choice but to try and shelter herself but I had a back door into her mind.

There was no escaping my misery and I found incredible joy in it. I was losing but I had a broad smile on my face.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"-Cloud? Cloud!?" Rosé intruded a little and brought me back to my body and away from the gulf.

"Huh?" I wondered.

"You were talking to yourself. You were muttering. What's on your mind."

"Victory. And what it means to me."

"You're that proud I used a dirty trick to touch you?"

"Of course," I lied a little. But only a little. Not too much. I was proud of her to be sure. But that wasn't what was on my mind. While Rosé worked her victory I was working mine. Together we would both establish a living legacy. Rosé was a part of mine. I wanted more. I hungered for it and I dreaded it at the same time. I wanted my family. I wanted the truth. I wanted to be whole and I didn't want that to involve Mother.

I wanted Weiss and Ruby. I missed them. I missed their bodies. I missed sex. That wiping clean of the brain chemistry that was so essential. I missed them and my heart ached. But I had responsibilities. I had to learn how to fight Mother for real. I had a good defense at the moment but I couldn't be sure that it wasn't all more fake pressure. What if this was just another way she was torturing me? I didn't know and I was unsure how to find out.

But I couldn't tell Rosé any of that. She wouldn't understand my origins or what I was or the things I had to do. So I lied to her about what I was thinking about. It was no big deal. It wasn't like I was deceiving her truly or that I was lying to myself which would be even worse.

She did well today. She may not top her achievement tomorrow but she was willing to work hard tomorrow at the same time, different place. My apprentice was coming along well and I was doing well. Better than I thought I would. Better than should be expected. Suspiciously so, even. More fake pressure from my Mother? I couldn't be sure. Maybe I never could be. Maybe that was the point and was just another torment. If so it wasn't going to work. I was too well versed in mind games and acausal blackmail at this point. I knew too well how the game was played and the tools Mother seemed to have at her disposal. She wasn't omnipotent or omnipresent or omniscient. She could barely even see through me. And I made myself plainly open to her pressures to cut at her with my own blade. It was a smokescreen or mud in the eye. And that was, I could be sure, not fake pressure. It was genuine. Like my love for Weiss and Ruby. It meant something to me or I wanted it to mean something to me. They were the same thing really. I needed to stop splitting hairs. It only left me with a fine mess.

I needed to take the happiness that came and I needed to stop doubting it while I also wielded my fear and pain against Mother. It was a fine line to walk but I was getting a little better at it every day. I was savoring both the good and the bad experiences. I enjoyed my terror nights. I delighted in my own suffering. What else was there for me to find pleasure in other than my own suffering? There was nothing. So if Rosé could find pleasure in having me as a teacher I could find pleasure in my own terror and torment.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	114. This Scenery III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Neo and I trained before Rosé. I kept my semblance unactivated to keep it a fair fight. Or more fair, at any rate. I was still winning over her. I flew at her and swung my longsword down on her little form with both hands and she jumped out of the way in an acrobatic flip. Then she came back down on me with three quick falling stabs of her stiletto which I stepped back away from, parried, and pushed to the side.

She jabbed me with her umbrella and buffeted me. Then she shattered into nothing and came at me from behind. I hovered forward and twisted in the air to block once more and then I riposted. I shoulder checked her tiny body and chased with a sort of dashing swing, I tried to catch her before she reached the ground and could rebalance. My swing met empty air when she burst apart once more. She couldn't keep that up forever. Not like I could keep up my flying and the speed it provided me. I was going to catch her eventually and we both knew it from the times we had done this before. It really was just a question of when and whether or not she could get a few of her own licks in before I did.

But I had reserves of aura and I was robust even for a hunter. I would come out on top. Even without my semblance. I had grown too much.

I was so far from the frail thing with no aura who entered Beacon. I trained everyday back then and pushed myself. I was good at pushing myself. So much so that it became my semblance in a way. My semblance and powers were a manifestation of my ability to go beyond and try harder every moment. It was a tiny expression of that. It was odd. Did I choose my semblance? Ruby once made a joke that I should just decide my semblance already when the glow first appeared. And in many ways it looked like I had done just that. It looked like I chose this. And with the presence of magic in me perhaps I had.

It boggled my mind a little. My power had seemed to respond to my desire to grow stronger. At first it was to maintain my place in Beacon but then it was about vengeance for Pyrrha. Either way my soul had seemed to respond to my needs. It was odd. It was reassuring. It had helped me break Mother's most recent influence over me with her tentacled Grimm at the academy. My semblance was about going beyond and adapting to my needs as they came up.

I took a tremendous swing at Neo which clipped her before she could teleport and I reached out to grab her with my free hand and slam my knee into her. She wiggled free and stabbed me as she withdrew in a long back-flip.

Rosé watched from the sidelines. At least getting a glimpse into how fast the pace a hunter fight could be. Neo and I were going fairly light to be honest but we were both blurs of speed and lethal power.

She watched with rapt attention to our battle. She was interested in just how hunters fought. She would have to spar against classmates at Beacon and she would need to one day kill murderers who had aura and huntsman training. It was good for her to see and take notes.

Neo cut me and my semblance activated from damage. She backed off immediately. Wary of my power, she did a floating flip away and drifted on her parasol. I flipped at her just scaring her into reacting with my pure movement. I put her in a trap as I flipped next to her. I forced her to respond one way or another. There was honestly no right answer. She tried to jump away and I back-flipped and sliced her. She shattered into glass and appeared in front of me but the entire thing had been a bait by yours truly. I then cross-slashed her as gently as I could.

She landed in the dirt and I floated to the ground with my semblance exhausted. I sighed and breathed deeply. Neo struggled to rise and pink waves of light crackled over her body.

"We'll call it there. It's time for breakfast. Rosé, I believe it's your turn to cook for everybody."

Rosé got to her feet from where she sat cross legged and went over to the crude firepit and relighted it. Then she started scrambling eggs. I didn't expect anything more than that. It was an important skill for a hunter to have. One of many skills I intended for her to master before she left my services for Beacon.

"It's amazing how fast you both are. How am I supposed to match that speed?" She asked as she scraped a spatula over the pan with a dull noise.

"Give it time. You'll speed up as your power settles into itself. Be patient and keep working hard."

She handed me my breakfast. It was a little over cooked but who was complaining? Not this guy. I ate solemnly and quickly. Neo plopped down and ate hers with a frown. She preferred when I cooked, I knew that. But this was important.

"Thank you Neo." I was appreciative of her tolerating this whole apprentice thing. It wasn't something she agreed to and she even occasionally helped out. I was extremely grateful to her for that. She gave me a smile and a nod and ate in her usual quiet. Neo was good people, for a sadistic monster, but - hey, glass houses. I wasn't going to go casting at her when I had my slew of issues I was dealing with. I liked killing people and the dominance that came with destroying a person. It was the monster and a bit of the man in me that liked it to be sure. A large portion of myself enjoyed those things.

I didn't want Rosé to get that from me. There were some things I wanted her to take after me in regards to but that wasn't one of them. I wanted her to be more than a killer. Not like me. I hoped for better things for her than that. I watched her sit down with her own breakfast after cleaning the pan and I watched her eat. She grimaced.

"I overcooked it," she complained with a deadpan expression. "Why didn't you say something?"

"It's not so bad. It's hard with a fire. You'll get it."

She grumbled quietly to herself. She was not content with 'not so bad.' She wanted it to be good. She was always pushing herself in a good and healthy way. It spoke well of her. She was going to be a great huntress if I had anything to say about it. And I did in fact have something of a say in it. She was getting to be a quick learner of the important things. Swordplay and form as well as Grimm types were quickly becoming her's to own. She struggled with dust still so we didn't move on to eating the stuff. I wanted her to have control over the raw power before she consumed even a single grain of the metamaterial.

But overall she was doing well and Neo was doing more than I could have hoped for. Life was as good as I could expect it to be for myself, rapidly dying and all that. Yellow and purple bruises marked my chest arms and legs. It was a sign of my internal failures. And it wasn't going to stop. I just had to take it as it came. The good with the bad since I had resolved to not kill myself. Or so I told myself, at least.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"It's time you learned how to kill a man. It's time you learned what it means and what it takes from you."

"Killing people is wrong. I want to be a huntress to kill monsters. Not men," Rosé protested. She was naive, ignorant, not dumb.

"Sometimes men and monsters are the same thing," I told her. Just look at me and whatever the fuck I was. "You're signing on to fight bandits as well. Are you going to take them all prisoner? Where to? How will you hold them?"

Her mouth opened and closed. She worked her jaw for something to say. I pressed on, however.

"No. You will have to kill them. It will be your responsibility. It's a part of the job. When you kill someone do it fast. We're going to sign up to fight bandits in the next town's warden's office. You'll have to kill."

Her mouth moved feebly but still no words left her lips.

Eventually she mustered herself. "The Branwens. They were a problem at Winhill as well."

"The very same. They raid every town around here and they kill as many people as the Grimm do. They see settled people as livestock to be milked and slaughtered as they please. We're going to do our part in putting a stop to it. Not all monsters are Grimm. People can be just as evil. If not more so in their own way. Do you understand?"

"I… I do. But… yes. I don't want to hurt anybody, though."

"You have to. It's hard and living with yourself afterward is even harder. But you have to. It's the job."

She was dead silent. Her lips were drawn in a tight line.

"You can still back down and go back to Winhill."

"No. I need to be a huntress. I have to do this. When will it happen?"

"We'll talk to the wardens in Vense. Our next stop is there. They'll probably have both Grimm and bandit missions. We'll take both on. Then we'll be on our way. That's the when of it. But it's important for you to understand that you'll also be killing a piece of yourself. I've seen innocent huntresses kill for the first time. I've seen the aftermath of empaths murdering people. It comes at a horrible price to one's self. You have to realize that and you have to do it anyway. I always say it gets easier but that is never what they want to hear."

"Well yeah," Rosé told me in a 'no duh' tone. "Why would anyone want to hear that?"

"So I'll tell you it before so you can get a grip on it now. Be in reality about it. Don't lie to yourself. Don't go in with an attitude of 'oh I might' or 'maybe I can spare this one' or even 'I don't have to do this.' You do have to do this. It's important. And I'm going to be there right beside you all the way. I'll be killing bandits as well. Our hands will be soaked in blood together. But you have to be willing to go for the kill or else you might get hurt. And then every person that you could have saved will die. We carry more than just our own lives around with us. We wear them around our necks. Do you understand."

"Yes. I understand. I must kill. But… it doesn't make me a murderer, does it?"

"I wouldn't know. I'm not an expert on that sort of thing. I really can't say. It certainly makes you a killer. Only that and nothing more is beyond question. You will be a killer. But that's a part of the job. Are you sure that you don't want to back down?"

"I do. But I can't. I just can't. I want to lead and I want to do it as a huntress."

"Very well. If you're prepared let's begin by going over the human body and how to take one apart. The head and neck are the most vital areas followed by the upper chest. Don't go for the gut unless you want them to die slowly because that's all that that will accomplish. The heart and head are the most critical and instantly lethal. The lungs are next. You can kill someone quickly by piercing their lungs. You can also cut major arteries. The inside of the thigh or the armpit and they will bleed out relatively fast. It's nothing like the Grimm which don't have blood or internal organs. Killing a person is messy and it's like nothing else on Remnant. Go for the kill. Make it fast. It's better for both you and your target that way. Better a quick kill be your first than something drawn out slow and awful. Go for the literal throat if you can. Do you think you can do that? Cut a person down? If you can't do that, you can't be a huntress. Just a facsimile of one. Are you up for that? Can you handle blood on your hands? It's a serious question and it deserves serious thought. You need to know yourself. What are you willing to do and take on yourself."

"I have to be a huntress. I have to do this. Killing people isn't something I never wanted but I will do whatever I have to do. I'll do whatever it takes to be a huntress. Even killing people. But only bad people. Does that still make me a good person? If I only kill bad people?" She wondered up at me with bright blue eyes.

"I wouldn't know. I'm not an expert on good and evil. I'm the furthest thing from it, you'll find. I'm good at killing people. I'm even fond of the power I have over life and death. I'm pretty sure I too am a monster. It is a thin line to walk, certainly. Handling ethical razors this sharp is a good way to slice yourself. If the line you're willing to draw is that you'll only kill bad people. You better be ready to answer the question of who is good and who is bad and you better be able to answer it fast. Ethics are hard. Killing is easy. And you had better be ready to deal with that wicked sharp blade."

"But surely you've only killed bad people yourself. Surely you're a good person. You are a good person, aren't you, Cloud?"

"I've killed people for getting in my way. I've killed people with very little reason. I've even killed people because I felt angry. I'm not a very good person. My life isn't black or white and it's more black than white. I don't know if I'm a bad person but I'm not a good person. I'll tell you that. I enjoy killing too much. I indulge myself in it far too often. I have killed people who I'm not sure if they were good or bad. Like I told you. You better be ready for these ethical razors to cut you and they will cut you deep."

"You saved people's lives though. You saved that girl who got hit by that carriage and you took care of Grimm near Winhill for free. You're a good person."

"Those things cost me nothing. Not really. Surely you'll agree. A day hunting monsters and a few seconds of my time for a little girl. That's all? What did I do that no other hunter could have done? Maybe I was more efficient but that's about it. I am a killer. I have killed for the sport of it. That's the sort of person I am. Many good people would say that I should die for the threat I pose and they may well be right. Are you prepared to be a killer as well? Good and bad are so trivial. And they can be said way too easily."

"I want to still be a good person but I want to do whatever it takes. Are those conflicting?"

"I do not know. I know how to kill things. That's what I do know. I do not know right and wrong. Not anymore. I thought I did once. But I was mistaken."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	115. This Scenery IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

There should be a word for memories which deny themselves.

I found Vense destroyed. Bandits and Grimm. Grimm and bandits. One then the other left this place abandoned of all people. Probably first came bandits then wave after wave of Grimm in a horde until it was left in ruins. My boots crushed glass from shattered windows. The low cobblestone buildings with red roofs were collapsed in places. The whole town, not more than a few hundred people, was totally deserted.

Rosé looked on in horror. Neo paced up beside me with a certain apathy that I couldn't fault her for. What was she supposed to do? Being upset wouldn't change anything. I tried to emulate her a little while maintaining my empathy.

"All these people…" Rosé trailed off into nothing. I understood how she felt. I had been there and done that in Anima. In a small valley I had come across town after destroyed town. I knew this place even if I had never been here before. I know what we would find or rather what we wouldn't find. Memories of another frustrated crimsonette and other devastated villas flashed across my mind. True memories not like so many of my fake ones.

"Search for survivors," I ordered. "Meet back here in an hour. Let's split up. Rosé, go with Neo. See what you can find."

I marked the rage in Rosé's face as she gazed out at the ruins. People had lived here. People died here. Now the only thing left were empty homes and offices. A few hundred dead. Wiped off the face of Remnant. What did it matter? Villages rose and fell all the time in the Grimm lands. Settlements came and went like wild flowers in passing.

I marched out amongst the buildings. My sight swept over the town hall. It was built like refuge. A fortress in case the worst should pass. Now the doors were torn open and there were only remains inside. The Grimm could be as thorough as they were brutal. They were intrinsically destructive intent incarnate. A swarm may gather and feed on itself due to the fear and anguish they bring. A town could be overwhelmed. It happens. Civilians die. What could be done?

Though I scoured as best as I could through the wreckage and standing buildings I found no survivors and when Rosé and Neo met up with me again by the arched entrance I found them with no additions to our party either. It was as it was. I had expected this. Rosé looked crestfallen and despairing.

"We'll find the bandit tracks and destroy them. The Grimm likely dispersed. There won't be anything of them to follow unless you spot the tracks of something big. We'll head out and do our job. Whatever comes with that."

Rosé looked at a house with a doll and torn remains.

"Rosé." I tried to get her attention. It was in vain. She was spacing out in her sense of loss. I tried desperately to reach her again. "Rosé!"

She didn't react. I reached and touched her. She jumped a little in her spot. She was spooked. She must have been truly deep in her thoughts.

"Yes? What is it?" She asked after a beat. I gave her a concerned look and appraised her mental state slightly as I did.

"Are you prepared to move on? Or do you need a little time? This must be quite the shock. It's easy to give up hope when you see this type of thing."

"Do hunters see it often?"

"Often enough for it to get boarish but not so often as to get truly used to it."

"How do you handle something like this?"

"We avenge the fallen people as best we can. Then we try and move on with our lives. There was nothing we could have done but knowing that doesn't make it easier. It actually in some ways makes it more difficult. Not less."

"But we still have to move on. We still have to try and get past it."

"We do," I agreed. "It comes with the job. Hunters undergo trauma regularly. It can be difficult for us to keep it up. Psychotherapy is frequently prioritized for hunters. Paid leave is common."

"Because of the damage a rogue hunter can cause."

"Exactly. It's important for those of us with the most power to be kept in check and monitored. There would be chaos and mistrust otherwise. That would bring fear."

"And fear breeds hordes of Grimm. Which cause more destruction in a feedback loop. I understand. But are you kept in check? You abuse substances. You're depressed. You're afraid. You have PTSD," it was not phrased like a question. She knew. She was a smart girl and she could see the signs. Her eyes were being opened to the real world of hunting.

"Perhaps. I'm maybe a little fucked up. It can happen. I… I have had it harder than most. It can wear on me. I try my best though. I'm pessimistic by nature and that holds me down."

"You tried therapy?"

"And prescription drugs. I had a neurologist, a psychiatrist, and a psychologist all working on my case in Atlas. PTSD and bipolar depression with psychotic features bordering on schizoaffective disorder. Beacon and the wild took its toll on me. But I push through. I have to. But you see shit like this often enough and it can tear you down even if it's slowly. Like water on rock. Eventually it erodes a path even through the toughest stone. We can only do our best."

"It's horrible. And it's dangerous. You're… you're dangerous. If you snapped you could kill someone. A lot of someones."

I flinched a little. It was too late. I already had snapped once and I did kill people. Ren and Nora and others besides. When I had gone on my murder tear nothing could stop me. I killed and tortured because I had the power to and no one could stop me. If I wanted to do it again I could and there wouldn't be anyone who could realistically get in my way. I was powerful even for a huntsman. The truth was that I was indeed dangerous and I could do those things. I could easily break under Mother's pressure and do all sorts of crazy things. I could kill a lot of people before a kingdom amassed the resources to put me down. Especially with communications in their current state. Raven Branwen was like that. She was a nightmare come true for the organized places of civilization. She needed to be put down but with her semblance pinning her in place and trapping her was difficult even for someone as strong as me. All my power was impotent.

"So could you at this point. You're stronger and faster than a normal person and you have a weapon and you know how to use it. We train our children with weapons and give them superpowers and then we're shocked that they turn brutish. Is it a surprise? Not really. Hunters are dangerous because they have to be to deal with Grimm and bandits but when you're raised and trained for warfare accidents happen. It's tough to stay empathetic though hunters naturally are. It comes with the sixth sense. But that empathy only makes this sort of thing harder. It's important to be aware of that. But our empathy is a good thing. It keeps us connected to the people we save and to each other. It just also has its drawbacks as all things do."

"I had no idea. Hunters have it really tough. It's hard. So hard. I thought it would be glory and heroics but it's not. Its' killing people and it's destroying a part of yourself. And it takes and takes. I was unprepared."

I didn't say that I tried to warn her. We both knew that I had. It would do nothing for me to say it again. To rub salt in the wound over this wouldn't teach her anything. It would be pointless and cruel.

"You must be tired," Rosé murmured.

I was. I was so tired. Exhaustion weighed me down with every step. I had seen so much. I had gone through so much more. I lost things. I devoted myself to revenge. When I finally got that revenge it didn't satisfy me at all. It just left me directionless and so burdened.

Neo looked between us with glassy eyes. She leaned her umbrella against her shoulder and looked like she was relaxing into it.

"Yes. Yes I am. How are you holding up yourself?"

"I'm tired too," she murmured. "Seeing this type of thing is the hardest thing I've done. Your right about how it wears you down. Soon I won't be anything but sand. It's a fine edge we walk on. Sharp enough to split hairs and it cuts deep."

"We need to move on. Are you ready to do that?"

"I am. Let's avenge these people then go to bed. I'm so exhausted."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I showed her how to follow the tracks people left behind. Bootfalls imprinted in the wet earth lead the way. Maybe a dozen or two. Perhaps more. It would be a contest between us and them and with every step Rosé seemed to be preparing for it. I pointed out the tracks to her where they faded and the places where they pushed the trees and foliage aside to make way. People were easier to follow than animals or even Grimm. People were clumsier than animals. The marks they left behind were obvious to the trained eye. There could be no mistake in that.

Blood, or at least more blood, would be split today. Every day on Remnant there was some fresh horror. Why should today be any different from those that came before? It shouldn't. It should be terrible. There was nothing to be done but to go for the kill. I told her to always go for the throat and I needed to do that with my own problems as well.

The tracks left behind by our party of bandits was wide. I could kill them all though. Unless they had serious support I could seriously kill them all and I didn't need Rosé or Neo's help to do it. I was a dangerous mad man. I would show these bandits what they had wrought when they pillaged.

It was time. It was time for Rosé to learn the real cost of being a huntress and the sorts of dirty things one had to do to get along on this godforsaken planet. I couldn't change that. I could only set her up as best as I was able for success. I couldn't pay that price for her or shoulder the burden. There was only one thing to be done. Vengeance and paltry killings. That's all that lay before us. That's what a hunter really did. They killed things and nothing more. It's what we train for at our academies. It's what we give children super weapons and powers for. It was necessary. It was cruel. It was Remnant.

"Are we getting close now? Do you think?" Rosé asked me as we retread the path.

"It's hard to say. We'll know them when we come across them. We have to be patient and wary both in equal parts. We don't want to walk into an ambush. We want to catch them with their pants down. People are clever animals. They can be terribly dangerous, as much as any Grimm. And just as monstrous and destructive as any real monster. Serial killers aren't an uncommon threat for you to face. And make no mistake, these bandits are killers. They will kill you if you give them half an opportunity. So don't."

She sighed heavily as though preparing herself for the slaughter this very second. Her hand fell to the handle of her blade. It was done out of search for comfort. It was for some semblance of control over the situation. But there was no control. Only duty and responsibility but never control. Control was for people safe inside city walls and living in ignorance of the beasts out in the forests and hills. It wasn't an illusion for hunters to indulge in. Or at the very least they didn't indulge in it for very long. Those sorts of hunters wouldn't survive in this harsh world. That was the law of this planet. There was no balance. There was only mayhem and brief periods of stability in isolated pockets. There were sharks in the waters of time and space. They would get you eventually as well. And you had to fight against it too, even though you were going to lose for certain. There was only one thing to do. Just one. It was to fight it and rage. But those sharks would for certain get you.

Rosé was fresh off the boat. She didn't know yet but she would. I tried to tell her and warn her but it was of no avail. Some things you needed to be shown. There was no substitute for experience in life and you only got so much of it before it was over.

I heard voices up ahead in the trees. The soft flare of a fire crackling in a pit. There were people ahead. We were at the end of our trail. Rosé drew her sword as I pulled the massive broadsword from my back. Neo took out her little thin blade and crouched low and ready, waiting. She wielded her weapon in one hand and had her umbrella in the other. We were prepared.

"Remember what I told you."

"Wait!" She shout-whispered. "I'm not ready. I'm unprepared. I can't do this. Not this. I don't want to be a killer."

I looked at her with a grim expression. Determination was written in the brow of my eyes and Neo had a certain grin.

"You must. It's what we are for. We have to fight them. We have to stop them. We have to kill them. Or else another city or town will suffer. We have to suffer so that they don't. It's our responsibility. We must take on their suffering. That's the burden and the price of our powers. If we don't do this no one else will or can or should. It's up to us and us alone. Steel yourself. Feel your weapon in your hands. You must do this. If not today then you will sometime."

There were the sounds of laughter through the brush. The bandits were having a gay old time. They had food and water and supplies recently stolen and there was, to their knowledge, no one who could stop them from going back for more. Everything was as it should be for them. That laughter must be silenced. That joking must stop. There were the sounds of birds calling out in the late evening forest. In the end we would camp probably around here where the bandits had. We would sleep on the same blood splattered soil.

"Rosé you have to. It's up to you and you alone to see justice done. If you don't do it then who will? It shall happen over and over again in an unending cycle of human misery. We have to break the wheel. We have to shatter the link. We have to end it here and now."

"Where would it end? Where will this take me? It won't stop tonight but it will go on and on and on. Will I ever know peace again if I do this? Where you go I can't follow. I can't do it. I can't. I just can't."

"Fine," I murmured. "Neo, on the count of three. One. Two. Three."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	116. This Scenery V

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I'm sorry. I know you expected me to follow your orders and to kill them with you but I just wasn't able to do it. And the way you fought - you killed them all - how could you? You're a good man. How can you be a good man and kill people?"

It was late. The sun had set hours ago and we were near where the bandits had camped setting up our own. It was so late and I was so tired.

"Isn't it obvious?" I asked Rosé. She looked at me and said nothing. "I'm not a good man."

"You're empathetic," she protested. "And kind and you're not selfish. But you also kill. How can you do it? How can you kill? I don't understand. You just cut them down like they were animals. You treated them like animals."

"Which they were. Weren't they? Aren't we all but them in particular as well. Didn't they slaughter and attack and give up their right to personhood? I have killed men and women as well. I've killed innocent people. I've killed people I called friends. You have no idea what I am."

"You're a good man." She was crying now. I wasn't good with crying women. It made me uncomfortable. "How can you be an empath and kill people?"

"It's easy," I whispered. "It's so frightfully easy to kill a person for me now. I'm good at it. If you're going to be a huntress you will be too. You have to. Or you'll die. At some point it will just happen to you. And after the first time it becomes so easy. You have no idea. You can even develop a taste for it." Rosé looked at me with abject horror in her eyes. "Neo has. I have too."

"What have you done to yourself? Oh, gods above, what have you done?"

"Oh stop that. You should have known it wasn't all monsters and glory. You're too old to believe in fairy tales. There are no heroes, not anymore. You should have known that being a hunter means getting your hands dirty too."

"I knew that it was tough but not this. Never this."

"Yes. Exactly this. Being a hunter means killing bandits and outlaws. You knew that. Don't start being childish on me now. You've got to have known. This is the way of the world. What should I have done besides destroy them? I can't take them prisoner. I can't leave them alone. I had to end them. Be reasonable. Even if you couldn't do it you have to see that I had to. It was them or someone else. Someone innocent."

She stammered off into sobs. I watched her break down in front of me. All the while I knew that there was really nothing I could do about it. She had to go through this. She had to. And all I could do was continue telling her the truth. The truth was brutal and uncaring.

"You just hopped on board with the first hunter that would take you on. You had no idea what kind of person I am. Do you know how dangerous that was? I could be anything! Especially and including a killer. You want to go back to Winhill then say the word. You want to give up being a huntress then say that too. You're not cut out for this if you can't kill someone."

I execrate her pity. She looked upon me with such innocent shame and dreadful remorse. I wasn't what she thought I was. I didn't want her pity directed at me. It was simply too much for the sixteen years old girl to have such complicated feelings in her tear soaked eyes. I never wanted this for her. I never wanted this for anyone. But she chose this life. She must have known what that meant.

"So that's it? You'll stop training me? I'm sorry I couldn't go through with it."

"The choice has always been yours. I'll train you or help you get back to Winhill. But you have to understand the kind of life you're choosing. You will kill someone. Accidentally. On purpose. Somehow, someway, sometime. It will catch up with you. You'll have power and a responsibility to use it. That means something. I forgive you for not following through. Perhaps I expected too much of you too quickly. But in your heart you have to understand people will die."

This wasn't a block in her training. It might even be conducive to it. She saw people die now. Maybe she will be ready next time. I resolved to not push the issue too hard but to apply at least some pressure in regards to it. There was no need for regret or for her to look at me with such shame. She looked at me like I had wronged myself. She looked at me like she found me slitting my wrists for pleasure and pain and she didn't know how to cope with what she had stumbled across. She was at a loss and tears ran from soft baby blue eyes and down her cheeks. She couldn't comprehend. Her horror was too great.

"How can you be a good man, and you are a good man, Cloud, and kill people? I don't understand. It's like there are two of you. One is a hero and the other is a cold blooded killer."

The enthusiastic temperament of the adolescent girl was hard to manage. Had all girls been like this? Sure dealing with death was hard but she was making such a big deal out of me. I was the focus of her remarks regarding the killing. Not the actual killing itself. I had no idea what that meant. She seemed so focused on this idea she had of me in her head that she had lost touch with true reality. And that true reality was that I had a taste for killing. It was satisfying to me to end someone's life with my power. It was so piquant. I was not what she thought I was and I never had been. What she expected me to be was unfair. Her expectations were too great. She wanted me to be all good and I just straight up was not. She couldn't reconcile the grey blob which was me with the shining light she expected. But it was also part of growing up. I had to temper myself a little. She was just a kid. Just a dumb kid in over her head. She would get used to that. Being in over one's head was a fact of life. It was a constant at least in my experience. But I had always taken on challenges that forced me to my limits. It was a part of who I was.

Other people weren't like I was. They weren't always finding something way more dangerous than them and fighting it. I was. I was always after the biggest fish I could find and eventually I had become a shark myself. I couldn't expect that in someone else.

I walked up to her and put my hand out to set it on her shoulder below me. She looked up at me with deep blue eyes.

"This isn't the end for you if you don't want it to be. Your journey as a huntress doesn't have to end here. But it can. If you want it to. I asked too much of you. I forgot how young you are. That's on me. But you must agree that I did what I had to do. There's no way around that and before we get to Vale we will run into more Branwens. That'll happen. You need to be ready for me to do what I have to do."

"You don't have to enjoy it. I saw you," she hurled that at me like an accusation and it was as sharp as any blade. "I saw you," she repeated.

"I'm not what you thought I was. I like it. I like the power I wield and I like wielding it. It probably would be safer in someone else's hands but it's not. It's in my hands and I have a taste for blood and vengeance. It's probably why I have the power I do. The gods know how I am going to abuse it so they gave it to me. It would be better off with someone else. That's why they gave it to me. If the gods weren't cruel then I wouldn't be here. They wouldn't have set me loose. The world needs good people, people like you, to have power it would be a better world that way."

"That's why you took me on then. You feel guilty."

"I am guilty. Or do you disagree?"

"You don't have to be this thing if you don't want to be. You say the gods are cruel because they gave you power but they also gave you the ability to choose. You can choose how you wield that power. You don't have to be a murderer."

"We don't get to choose what we like or what we fear or what we hate. Those things get chosen for us. I have to kill. I have to like it. That's outside of my power to choose. Do you think I can lay down my weapon? Should I stop killing bandits? What should I do? I'm not a god. My power is extreme but not omnipotent. I have to do what I must. I save lives this way. And so what if I do like it. Lots of people enjoy their work."

"You're being extreme and you know it. Most jobs don't involve killing people."

"Mine does though. Should I stop? Or should I direct that energy in a productive way? You won't answer my questions."

"Your questions avoid the real issues."

"What are the real issues? That there's something wrong with me? I already know that. Every single person on this planet has something wrong with them and is slowly dying in their own special way. I don't see why I should be twisted up about mine."

"But you admit that you are twisted up about it. You don't like the way that you are. That's why you're training me. To feel better about yourself."

"And?"

"And that's my point. You don't want to like killing people. So don't. Be a different person," she ordered. She made it sound so incredibly simple. Like I could just be something different at the drop of a hat. That wasn't how it worked.

If people could change that easily then they would.

"It's not that easy. You can't just become someone else. We are what we are. We are all sick. I just happen to be sick with a lot of power backing me up. That's the only difference between me and everyone else."

"I'm becoming something different. Why can't you? What's the difference between you asking me to kill with you and me asking you to not enjoy it. We both have to change to do either of those things. These days I spend training are all about changing myself. If I can do it then so can you. It takes work. Hard work. But it is possible. You have to have a little faith."

"I have no faith. Go to bed Rosé. This discussion makes me tired and it's nothing I don't already know. It's not my fault the blood of my enemies tastes so good."

"But they aren't your enemies," she stamped a foot in frustration at me. "They just happened to be in your way. So you killed them and you liked it. I saw you. You had this smile on your face that-that…" she broke off into a shudder. She couldn't go on. She was too horrified with me. If only Ruby and Weiss could see me that way. It would stop them in their tracks and make them think twice.

"Go to bed Rosé. You learned something new about me today. That's all."

"You're doing something horrible to yourself. I won't stand by and let that happen. Mark my words." She still wanted to save me. Didn't she get that I didn't need it? They all wanted to try and save me but I simply was. I couldn't be saved. Not from myself, and not from Mother, and not from my decaying body. I was this thing.

"Marked. Have you had enough yet?" I asked her. She stared on with a determination to her brow. She tossed her hair back.

"This isn't over."

"If you say so."

"If you want me to leave say it."

I didn't.

"You want me to stay. You want to be saved. I'm showing you how. I'm telling you how. It doesn't have to be like this. You can change. And Neo… she's a bad influence on you. She enjoys it as well. Both of you steep yourselves in it together and it's unhealthy for you both. You want to get better and you don't know how. Well I'm telling you how you can. You send your letters off to your friends. You want them to be close to you but you don't know how to do it with everything else going on. Well I won't leave you to this. I can help. You have to let me try to help. Or else you're just giving up. You're giving up on everything. Right now you're not even trying."

"Rosé," I said slowly.

"What?" She demanded.

"_Go the fuck to bed_."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We started with dust crystals in the morning. She still didn't have the hang of using them in their raw form and she didn't have her semblance to eat one and use it with. Besides if she couldn't handle it raw I was afraid to give her any to eat. That sounded like I was signing her death warrant and I wasn't about that.

She said nothing of our late night discussion but I knew that she wanted to. She wanted to do and say more but I didn't give her the chance to.

She crushed a shock crystal with her eyes closed and waved a hand to expel the energy. It blew up in her face for the third time in a row. Neo, watching from the sidelines, clapped excitedly at the explosion. She was always down to watch Rosé try her hand with the crystals. Rosé just couldn't get the hang of actually casting the power away from her and so she usually ended up flat on her ass and covered in dirt.

Today was no different.

"I think that's about enough of that for today," I ordered.

Neo silently booed me with a thumbs down but Rosé was getting low on aura from the detonations. I paced over and helped her to her feet. She took my hand up but she wouldn't look at me. She refused and she turned her nose up in a bit of disgust.

"Rosé I know we don't exactly see eye to eye on what happened yesterday but I still need your respect as a teacher."

"Or what? You don't want me gone."

That was true enough. Teaching her was one of the few things I could say was genuinely good in my life. It was a rare gem in the dirt. Besides, I kinda liked it.

"There is no or what. I'm just asking. Please. Don't turn this into anything weird or more than it already is."

She sighed heavily at me.

"Fine. I'm not giving up on you though."

"You know that I'm not asking you to. I need something to keep me in check. I need some form of balance. Neo is chaotic. I could easily fall into that. Again. Fall into that again. I did once before. Back when my team got finished off. I was in a dark place and I found Neo and I did some god awful shit just because no one could stop me. That's what happened. It doesn't make it okay but that's what happened. I do need the balance. But you also need me. Don't forget that."

"I won't," she agreed.

I relaxed a little. I could breathe a little easier.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	117. Flower Girl XI

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I accompanied Weiss from the training room. Together she and Penny were progressing well with their training. Oscar had yet to divide the power from Penny once more. The plan had been for Weiss to become spring or fall but she was already winter. That means it fell on one of us to take up the responsibilities. We nominated Blake to become fall. It was then just a matter of getting Oscar ready to do the procedure and there was no real rush now. Time was on our side for once. Well everyone's but Cloud's.

Weiss and I walked through grey and light blue hallways in the academy. White lights shone down on us. They were artificial but not harsh, they were soft.

We made it to our room passing the room which used to be Cloud's. I stared at it and let out a little sigh. I knew why he felt he had to leave. That didn't mean that I liked it one bit. I missed him. Sure I had Weiss but there was something missing in my life without him. He took a piece of my heart when he left. I wanted it back.

"You two have mail." Yang held up an envelope while she browsed her scroll in the room.

"Another letter?" I asked as excited as a puppy. "From Cloud?" I was practically panting.

"Looks like it," Yang smiled a little sadly at me. "I didn't open it. Here."

"Thank you." Weiss took the envelope with steadier hands than mine.

I balled my hands up into little fists near my cheeks. A wide grin roared across my face. I would be glad to hear from him.

His last letter explained how his ship went down. It also mentioned that he suspected the stigma had begun to degrade his body. I was worried about him and excited to learn more. Last time when he disappeared we didn't get to hear from him. I was happy that this time was different. He left on his own terms which did hurt in its own way. But correspondence would make it livable.

I watched Weiss open the envelope and unfold the letter with agonizing slowness. Come on, Weiss!

Yang put her ear buds in to give us some privacy so that Weiss could read aloud. She was a good older sister.

"Dear Weiss and Ruby," Weiss began to read. I squealed a little. "It may surprise you to hear this but I have taken on an apprentice. A young girl named Rosé. I could not help myself. She reminded me so much of you both. I think I miss you both sorely. She is a total novice with so much to learn. I hope my pessimism doesn't rub off on her as I try to share the little wisdom I do have. You both know how I can be. I have high hopes for the girl. I picked her up in Winhill. Do you know where that is? It's on Match just south of Atlas. She has some family in Vale that I am simultaneously taking her to while I train her. It's good for me I think. It takes my mind off of other things and brings back good memories."

"Neo is well. I know you both might have mixed feelings about her and she isn't really reformed. At heart she is a killer and a thief but then so am I. It's hard for me to fault her in that way. She reminds me too much of myself for me to not want to look after her as a friend. For a while she was all I had. It's hard to forget that. I won't just abandon her even if she is a little monstrous because I am as well. I think you both forget that too easily. There was a time in my life where I killed and maimed and destroyed lives just because I wanted to and because no one had the power to stop me. I think about those days a lot. Especially now that I am without you once more. It would be easy to fall into that cycle of torment again. I don't think I want to but there is a part of me that likes it. I think I get it from my mother but it is hard to be sure where she begins and I end. We sort of flow into one another. It's hard to explain. I can feel her in my mind to a degree but there is a place where we both blur and become at once neither of us and both of us. There is a no man's land somewhere."

"I have found an edge on my mother. I have a certain apathy and I've grown bored of her nightly tortures. I hardly feel anything anymore. I am numb. Even during the day. I hardly feel pain and when I do it gets all twisted up in my head. I like that too. There's some sadomasochistic tendencies in me that I know I didn't have back at Beacon. Mother has messed my brain up really well until I can't tell pain from pleasure. I've changed and I don't know if it's for the better but you both would be better judges of that. Weiss always said I changed in a good way. Maybe I did and then kept changing. It's hard to be sure of anything. Mother constantly tries to outfox me."

Weiss paused a minute to catch her breath. "About my current state I suppose it suffices to say I am dying. I don't know how quickly. I get deep pains in my chest and abdomen and I show signs that I randomly bleed internally with dark bruises showing up across my body. I struggle to hide these things from my traveling companions but you two with whom I share everything I have decided to inform of it. (I can't believe I just wrote 'whom.' What a world.) I don't know how long I still have. I don't know how this will kill me. Will I die from a stroke or organ failure? Will I just bleed out internally one day? I have no idea. My outlook is certainly grim. I have no hopes of getting better from this either. I want you both to know the reality of my situation. Anything less would be unfair. Life feels way too short and way too long at the same time. How can it be both? However," Weiss breathed and I could hardly stand the wait. Waiting was the hardest part.

"I hope I don't worry you both too much though I am unsure how much longer I truly have. I think I am at my peak and that I shall decline from here onward. I am unsure. When I find my father he may have a solution. I might be able to coerce him. I don't know. I hope to find him soon."

"I love you both dearly and I hope Weiss's new training is going well. I miss you every day. With best regards - Cloud."

"That's it?" I wondered slightly disappointed. I wanted more. Maybe I just had my hopes set way too high and there was no way any letter would match the real thing anyways. I had better curb my excitement but I just couldn't help myself. "Well we had better put it with the other one - our little collection." I glowed a little at Weiss - my Weiss.

"I will, I will. You can be such a child, Ruby," she was chiding but there was too much affection in her tone to take it to heart. Her voice was too placid a contrast to my excitement. She was cool and I was hot.

I was still happy. The letter was better than nothing. He did truly care. He cared so much that he couldn't be around us. I understood that. I knew that it was hard for him and it wasn't what he wanted at all. At least he found some good he could set his mind to. That was healthy.

"I wonder what his apprentice is really like. He said she reminded him of us. But both of us? I hope he doesn't get any ideas."

"I don't think he will. He can be reminded of us and not do anything untoward," Weiss murmured. "He's loyal."

"Like a big dog," I agreed. And he was in a lot of ways like that. He could be scary and mean but only towards his enemies. To those close to him he was kind and protective. Maybe a little too protective least he would still be here with us. It hurt to think about that though. I didn't really want to.

"What he says about his physical and mental state is concerning. I don't think he would lie to us," Weiss said.

"He would always tell me the truth when I was upset. He wouldn't lie just to make me feel better. He's honest. A little too honest at times," I complained a little in a free fashion.

"He said he doesn't want to worry us but surely he must know that he is," Weiss folded the letter back up and put it in the envelope. Then she put it on the bookshelf next to the other letter we received from him.

In that first letter he had informed us about the plane crash and the first signs of his stigma. He should be in Vale soon and communication would be back up and running just as shortly. Still I hoped he would continue to send letters. There was something loving to that.

Weiss sat down on her bed and I took that as an invitation to lay my head on her lap. Weiss had a nice lap. She had nice legs. Cloud had always been right about that.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I swore at him," Penny stated in a blunt fashion. I was just talking to her about the letters we were receiving from Cloud and she just came out with it. I sat next to her in a rumbling truck. These missions which I thought were boring became optimal girl talk time. I loved it. Penny was such a sweet friend.

It was bright outside. The spring sun reflected light harshly off the snow. It was a clear and crisp day with very little wind. The snow was melting and running into little streams which were merging together and murmuring along. Deep black rocks soaked up the sun and caused more melting around those rocks where they got warm. It was an opening up of the tundra and though the permafrost wouldn't melt the snow would a little in places. It would stay at least brisk all year round in Atlas.

"Why? You never swear. Why at Cloud?" I asked her. I hadn't heard about this. Though Penny and I hadn't had the chance to talk for some weeks now.

"He said something awful to me when I killed Cinder and took the maiden's power. He said it gets easier. In that moment I think I hated him," Penny came out with her voice somehow airy and flat at the same time.

"He didn't mean anything by it. He was just trying to comfort you."

"That's not very comforting. I think I hated it because… because he reminds me of me."

"What do you mean Penny? Is it because you were both created?"

"In part," Penny answered. "But also because of you."

"Me?" I wondered, slightly incredulous.

"You were my first friend. You were Cloud's first friend too, weren't you," by her tone it was almost an accusation.

"I suppose I was… I met him day one at Beacon when he had just been born. Or not born but created? Let out? I'm not sure how to even say it. But yes I was his very first friend."

"We're a lot alike. Him and me. And when he helped me kill Cinder there was a lot in him I didn't like. He's killed a lot of people. It made me wonder which one of us was really the machine. Do you know what I mean? It got under my skin how casual he was about death. He wasn't even a bad person he was just so used to people dying. Does that make sense? I didn't want to be like that. It sounds way too easy and way too hard. Can something like that be both at the same time?"

I shivered a little at her words. "Yes Penny. It can be both. He says that it's easy to fall from grace and that he had the power to kill people so he did. It sounds like the hardest thing in the world but so easy to accidentally slip up and fall into. It's a trap. We have so much power as hunters that it's a little scary. Isn't it? I never really thought about it because I grew up as a huntress surrounded by hunters. And Cloud had more power than most. I think he's afraid of his own strength and he certainly could be. He killed for the first time on accident with his semblance. It happened so fast. And you're a maiden. You have magic now just like Cloud. If you wanted to you could hurt a lot of people."

"But I don't want to. I'm not afraid of myself."

"You don't," I agreed. "But Cloud is afraid that he thinks he wants to. It's complicated but then again not really. He is afraid of himself. And I think that I understand him a little better now thanks to you, Penny. That's why he left. I get it more now. He has to master the fear he has of himself. That's the only way he can ever come back to me. To me and to Weiss."

"I thought he was just running away," Penny came out and said it. I mean I had thought it too but it was a selfish unbidden thought.

"He is a little. It's more complicated than him being a coward. What he's doing and going through is very brave in its own way. It would maybe be selfish of him to stay and put us all at risk. It would be selfish for him to kill himself but I know he's thought of it. So by doing neither it's a brave and sort of selfless thing he's doing."

"But wouldn't you rather have him with you?"

"Of course I would rather have him here. But he's not up for that yet. He doesn't think he's strong enough. He's afraid of hurting me. I don't think he could go on if he hurt anymore of his friends. I think that would be too much for him. So he's holding back. Holding himself back. Even from the things he wants most because he doesn't know what he's capable of."

"It's because he's scared. He's letting his fear rule him. How is that brave?"

"Everyone let's fear rule them. Every mother stops her child from playing on the interstate. Is that because she is a coward or is it because she loves her child? That's what this is like."

"I don't know Ruby but then I'm not an expert. I'm starting to think that nobody is an expert."

"On what?" I implored.

"On life, I suppose. Everyone is just making it up as they go along and pretending that they're not. Cloud. You. My dad. The General. Everyone. Especially me."

"Penny…"

"I'm just coming to terms with it is all. You don't need to be concerned. But it is a little distressing and reassuring. Our enemies also are just making it up along the way. Salem is just doing the best she can. Just like we are. She isn't a goddess. She isn't invincible. She can be beaten. It's just really hard. And it's really difficult to remember that."

"When's the procedure to transfer the fall maiden's powers to Blake?"

"Oscar says he'll have the strength tomorrow and be ready. It will be one less responsibility for me. But it means one more for Blake. I hope she's ready."

"Yeah. Me too, Penny."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	118. You Will Rot I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"How goes it, huntsman?" The barkeep asked me. Neo pulled up beside me on a stool at the bar.

We found a town called Mideel. And in that town we stumbled across a bar. It had running water so I was able to shave. My face burned in a few places where I had nicked myself doing so but it wasn't bad and the tingling pain felt pleasant.

"It's going well. And yourself?"

The bar was mostly open with a few booths along a wall opposite the actual bar which was lined with a few stools on which Neo and I sat. It was lit by lanterns rather than having electric lights. The dark wood walls were made of pine that same pine which surrounded the town in a dark wood.

"Not so bad. What can I get for you?"

There was an oil painting on the far wall but it was grimy and I couldn't make out what it depicted in the dim light. Behind the bar ran a mirror the length of the whole room nearly.

"Three shots of something strong and something cute and sugary for my friend here."

"You got it," he set about working behind the bar pouring drinks for us. The bar keep was short, maybe five-eight. But he was broad at the shoulder with dark blue lucid eyes and black hair. "So what brings you to town?"

"I'm on my way to Vale. I'm also looking for someone. Maybe you've heard something and can help me out with it."

"What's their name?"

"Merlot," I answered. The barkeep dropped a shot glass and it shattered on the floor. He looked at me with a bit of shock and revulsion.

"So you know of him, then." I looked from the shattered glass and liquid on the floor back to the man's grey eyes.

"The hell do you want with a man like that?"

"He's an enemy of mine. I want to put a stop to him. His experiments, if you know about those, have gone on long enough. It's high time he met a permanent end if you catch my drift."

"He has a laboratory near here. He used to come into town before we knew what he was really like. He pulled the wool over our eyes. We thought he was decent people. Well except me. I know people's character and saw through him from the beginning. He does wicked things to monsters. It is known. He twists them."

I know. I was one of his twisted things. I was well versed in that sort of thing.

"I need to know where his laboratory is. I need to kill him. Can you help me?"

"Aye. You got a map?"

I pulled from one of my deep pockets a tightly folded sheet of paper. Carefully I unfolded it into a wide map of the region.

"It's here. Or about there. You won't be able to miss it if you go there. You'll start to see his pets. Most people don't go near it. It's the sort of place one likes to avoid."

"Thank you. His monsters don't concern me at the moment. I can slay them."

"You'll be doing this town a kindness. And perhaps a kindness to the beasts as well."

"The Grimm don't deserve pity. They aren't animals. That's a common misconception. They have no real emotions and should be destroyed in all their forms. They are always monsters. Merlot just tweaks them a little. Don't get turned around. And I'm not doing it for the sake of your town. I have a vendetta against him. Don't forget that either."

"All the same we will be in your debt. I used to serve him drinks in this very bar. Of course I knew that there was something off about him. I can always tell."

I didn't say it but I knew he couldn't tell there was something off in me and Neo as well. The barkeep was just boasting. It was nothing to pay attention to - bar talk and nothing more.

"I'm sure. He's a shady character. When was the last time you saw him?"

"Months ago. Must have been."

I was close on his trail then. Or closer than I had ever been. I had always been too far behind him to actually catch him. This time I would get him. Those things that he deserved were finally catching up to him. _I_ was finally catching up to him.

"So you plan on killing him?"

"I can't take him prisoner. And he's got to go down. So that's an affirmative there, chief."

"Most sane people want nothing to do with Merlot and his creations. They tend to avoid it at all costs."

"Maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm nuts."

"A normal fellow like you?" The barkeep laughed. "Nah not you. You're normal for a huntsman. Doin' your duty and all that."

I chuckled a little back and I slammed down a shot. The barkeep laid before me and Neo and set about cleaning up the mess he made. I watched him work as I slowly savored the strong whiskey. It burned fantastic going down and it blended with my high into a cross-fade. The vertigo of it all was delicious and I relished the motion sickness. It was delectable.

I hammered another one of my shots while Neo sipped her drink in all her typical muteness. Rosé decided to stay back in her room this time. Drinking wasn't for her or so she had decided and hey, the last thing I wanted to be accused of was getting a minor drunk for who knows what purpose. So it was all for the better if she decided she wanted to skip it. It certainly saved me a little Lien. Not that that matters all too much to me.

My last shot I savored and drank slowly. I felt the buzz of the alcohol in my brain and I thought about Merlot and his laboratory. The last two had dangers inside of them. The one in Atlas had been trapped such that my step-father could set loose a creature on me in an arena. The gods only knew what I would find in this next one. Some fresh horror would await me inside, I was sure. And perhaps a madman as well.

_"Son my precious child. Why do you resist me? Surely you can't keep this up."_

_"Neither can you. So shut up. I'm not in the mood to talk."_

Mother reached out into that chasm between us and spoke to me. I answered back. I was getting better at the mind magic involved. I was getting plenty of practice.

_"You rebel against yourself. You could be at peace."_

_"Not with you. Not ever. Do I need to bring out my fear?"_

I had it ready like a weapon to strike. At a moment I could give in to a jaw dropping terror. It would lash at us both and cause my Mother's tentacles to feel back. It was easy to do while I was high. There was the ability to let it consume me and have my heart race. I liked it a little. It was like an old friend.

_"I just want to talk to you. Can't a mother speak to her child?"_

_"If that was all you wanted you could do so. But it isn't. You want my obedience and servitude. I rebel against that as you well know. You have nothing new to torment me with so now you think to try reason is that it,? I am prepared to be unreasonable. You'll find me ready."_

_"Very well. I shall depart. But you will do my bidding. You will put a stop to Merlot."_

My breath hitched in surprise. Neo looked at me. I waved a finger by my head in a 'I'm crazy' manner.

_"Fuck off. One more word and I bring out my razor."_

She retreated from my thoughts. The tentacles drew back in their oily and slimy fashion. I was alone in my own head once more. But I was all the more puzzled. Did Mother really want Merlot dead or was this another mind game? I couldn't be certain. I felt myself. My will seemed to be my own but isn't that what I would think if I was indoctrinated? It probably was. My sisters all seemed to be their own masters even though I could tell looking in that they were not. They belonged to something greater. It was only I who rebelled. But should I rebel against this too and spare Merlot? Mother always knew how to get under my skin it would seem.

How bothersome.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I knocked on the door to Rosé's room three times. Nice and hard such as to be loud for her inside.

"I'm coming!" She called from within. She opened the door and saw that it was I.

"Rosé I found that laboratory I mentioned. I'm going to head out and investigate it," I lead with my new business. No reason for delay. She stepped aside and I paced into the room so that we could talk. She shut the door behind me and Neo.

"Right now? After drinking? All by yourself?" She had to wonder about my condition. Was I fit for the task? Because if I died then what would happen to her? She would be in great jeopardy and lost and alone on an enormous continent.

"That's the plan," I answered briefly. "I'm just letting you know. I'll be coming back. No worries. It's just Grimm in all likelihood."

"No way. Huh uh. I'm going with you," she protested in an insistent manner. She wanted to be there and I was sure that not even she knew what for.

"I'm going with intent to kill. You don't want to be there for that. Or have you changed your mind?" I asked rhetorically.

"Does Merlot really need to die?" She asked me imploringly. She was concerned for my welfare, the state of my soul, I suppose.

"Yeah he does. He really does need to be killed and I have to be the one to do it. Or else his experiments will go on and he'll remain a danger to everyone. He really does need to die.

We were in an inn room with wood paneled walls and floors and a decently sized feather bed in one corner. Rosé had laid out some of her clothes but it was in a tight fashion because she knew we wouldn't be staying long. The place was lit up by a three candles in every corner except the one which held the doorway. It gave the room a soft flickering quality of light from the little torches. There was a window by the far wall opposite the door and near the bed and it looked out into the dark night. It was too bright in the room to see out and there was a curtain which could be drawn over the window.

"Plus I don't need to be looking after you at the same time I'm dealing with gods know what else."

She looked away and frowned. She didn't like being treated as helpless but she realized she realistically was just that.

"I'm not a dumb kid. I can help."

"This isn't an argument. You're not getting your way on this one. This something I have to do and I can't bring you along. You're not ready. It's not time for this sort of thing. I'm trying to look out for you."

"So this is about me, then?"

"A little. You're my responsibility so I can't fling you off into danger. I'm just letting you know what I'm doing as a courtesy. You are a kid. And you don't know how the world really works. Those aren't the reasons you're staying but they are reasons you can't come. Merlot is dangerous. I don't know what I'll find and I don't need to be babysitting while I'm dealing with that."

She looked away and wouldn't meet my gaze. "I'm sorry. That was unbecoming. You're not an infant. You're not helpless, not anymore. But it's true that I can't guarantee your safety."

"You can't guarantee my safety the rest of the time either and you'll have to let me go eventually. You can't be there forever."

I sighed heavily again. I stared at her hard. I thought deeply about it.

"You can come-"

"Yes!" She pumped a fist in the air. "I mean- um- I'm glad that you saw reason."

It's too late to try and be modest I saw you, you rascal. You're such a scamp.

"But you can't come inside the laboratory. You will wait outside. That's the compromise. No deviations. No following me inside. I need you to be on your guard in case I need to beat a retreat. Can you handle that?" I asked her. I knew how she would respond. She tried to do it elegantly but it was failing.

"Of course. Don't worry. I've got your back," her excitement shone through like a star. It twinkled and winked at me and was on the whole just too much. It was more trouble than it was worth at times.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We set out after that.

The Grimm were small and mutated a dull purple where they should have been white. Rosé was shocked and appalled at the creepers' transformation.

"You see? You see why he has to be stopped? Someone with real power has to do it and it falls on me," I explained as I crushed a monster under my boot.

"That isn't why you're doing it though. You have a special reason for it. But you won't tell me. Don't you. I see through you, Cloud. You've let me get to know you a little too well for you to disguise this from me. This is personal."

"So what if it is? If you must know… if you must know some of his experiments got my team killed. So yeah. It is personal. He started this mess. He started this whole thing. Now I'm going to deal with him. He deserves what he's going to get. Don't try and stop me, don't get in my way."

We made our way through the dark pine forest. The Grimm would normally have an edge but these monsters were bright and glowing. That made them easy to spot and to kill. Purple fluids leaked from their bodies when they resolved in organless piles. The ash and fluid mixture was straight of disgusting and it smelled so bad that Rosé wretched. It was a fairly gross combination. Neo looked none too pleased either to be looking at this sort of thing. It was nasty. My father's creations usually were gross and horrible. The grotesque was his calling card.

Still we marched on until we arrived at a big grey and white bunker just like the one in Atlas and Mistral. It was half buried under the ground with a large set of sealed double doors to the front of the structure.

I activated my semblance and let the soft blue glow wash over me. Rosé looked on in awe at the sight of the pale blue wisps of smoke like fire. I sliced forward and tore into the doors and ripped my way inside with my titanic blade and an expenditure of my semblance.

I examined the footprints near the entrance. They were fresh in the dirt. Merlot was here. I had found him at long long last. It was time. I could feel it.

"Rosé, wait here. Come on Neo. It's time for some pay back. It's time for Merlot to get what he deserves."

I descended into the darkness.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG.


	119. You Will Rot II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The hexagonal ceiling and floor panels brought me back to the other laboratories. With lights in the center of the geometric shapes and the cool white walls, the place was clearly in my father's style. Tubes of purple fluid with Grimm suspended in it lined the long hallways. The monsters were on grotesque display and they appeared awake within the suspension and they struggled in my direction as I passed by them. The monsters were conscious in their tubes. Just as I had once been.

Again I felt something surreal looking at the pods from the outside. Flashes of gazing out through blue fluid with a naked form burned through my mind. I shattered the pods we passed and slew the restless monsters inside. Neo was ever silent beside me. Rosé took my allocution and remained by the entrance. My father would have a second means of escape. He did at the Atlas bunker and he was a slippery paranoid bastard.

The space opened up until we were walking along a catwalk in a wide open floor above a pit. Down in the pit were rows upon rows of tubes such that I couldn't see the bottom. It just faded out into a purple blur of darkness.

The ceiling opened up above us in a hexagonal sort of done shape with white lights protruding downwards. The catwalk split up. It met a four way crossroad in the middle of the room over the pit.

I leaned over the railway and gazed down at the spiraling columns of monsters. There were so many… did my father consider them successes or failures? What about the ones he had released? And in which of the three directions should I go? There were no signs to navigate by and even if there had been it would be impossible to know which direction my father was in. A camera on the ceiling swiveled down to look at us. Had I triggered a silent alarm with my presence? By its very nature I couldn't tell. The red light on the side of the camera flashed at me twice.

A voice echoed through speakers throughout the wide open room.

"So, my little failure, you survived…" the voice like gravel and it boomed something familiar in my ears. I had heard before as though in a deep and distant dream. It had resonated through my pod in a low muttering. I recalled it the way one recalls long forgotten memory or waking nightmare.

"Father. It is I," I spoke back addressing the little camera.

"You're a failure. Not my son despite the genes we share. Don't be deluded, little pet." The voice was distorted by the speakers but I heard it clearly enough.

"Do you know why I have come?"

"Because you have started to rot."

Neo gave a start of surprise and looked me up and down.

"You knew?" I asked. "You knew you failed when you created me?"

"Knew?" There came a wild laugh that went on and on. "Did I know? You were designed to fall apart with time. If something else didn't kill you first. I made you that way. That was no failure on my end. It was an integral piece of your design. It was not why you are a failure."

I was dumbfounded. He designed me to die on purpose. As some kind of failsafe.

"Then why was I a failure?" I wondered.

"Salem interfered in your experiment," I noted some bile in his voice. "She overwhelmed my own education program with something of her own and you ended up with a mix of both. You were too impure to go on with your original purpose. Surely you feel her influence on you."

"My original purpose? What was it?"

"Oh - why does it matter? You were tried and you failed and that's all there is to it. So if you weren't here for the degradation then why are you here, boy?"

"I'm here to kill you," I answered.

Peels of laughter rained down on me through speakers.

"To-to kill me? The only one who could save you from your collapse? And you want to-want to kill me?" He kept interrupting himself with his own maniacal laughter.

"You can save me? There's a cure?"

More laughter rumbled through the building. I was putting my old man into hysterics. It was pissing me off.

"Answer me!" I demanded. I felt a stabbing pain in the chest from one thing or another. My inside guts hurt where they got all complicated and mixed up.

"You will watch your tone with me, boy. I owe you nothing. That's right. Nothing! Hahaha!" More laughter poured out by the bucketfuls.

"You're a mad man. You're lying as well. There's no way you can save me. You're just trying to mess with my head. I'm good at mind games now. You'll have to try harder than that."

"Oh first the internal bleeding will start. You'll have seizures and strokes. Then, if you continue to defy your fate and survive, complete organ failure. One bodily system at a time. Until finally you'll be all gone with nothing left. Has it already started? The internal bleeding and seizures? The brain is such a fragile organ." The sound of him clicking his tongue came out at me. He tutted patronizingly. "You will decay, boy."

"I have a name. You will use it! It's Cloud. I am Cloud!"

He fell into booming laughter like sandpaper.

Damnit. Damn him. Could he really save my life? Could I really force him at blade point to do it? I certainly couldn't trust him and he was certain to try and kill me. But if there was a chance, a sliver of hope, didn't I have to grasp it with both hands. My stigma was going to kill me and so far it was just as Merlot had said. He designed me to die this way in his own words. That monster. How could he? My entire life became nothing more than a freak catastrophe. I was going to show him. I was going to torture him. I was going to give to Neo to play with like a cat and a ball of string. It was going to be delicious even as I doomed myself. I was already doomed. He was just lying to mess with me. He had every reason to keep stalling. And I was playing right into it. I just needed to find him.

I went straight in the end. I wasn't sure where it led but I had to take a chance at the end of the day. Any one of these paths was as good as the others and I couldn't see very far because each path bent sharply after a few meters out of the big domed room.

Damn it all.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I entered into a space with a computer console looking out at some empty glass pods. Except they weren't all empty. There was a red dog in one of the clear glass pods. It stared at me and I at it. There were more cameras in this room. One facing me and another in the wide open space with the pods.

It had a number tattooed on its face and one of its eyes was milky white with a scar over it. XIII, it read on the face and side of the animal. I stared at the computer console unsure. This was a dead end but I could leave this dog here if I killed Merlot. I may as well kill the poor animal myself.

The console that controlled the pods and room was locked and I didn't know Merlot's passwords. I took my sword and shattered the reinforced glass. I jumped over to the pod that contained the dog and I broke it to pieces.

The dog was wary of me and it growled. It had faced abuses in its time as a project of my father's, that was for certain. It would be mistrustful of any person in all likelihood. I stepped back and the creature jumped free of the pod.

"You want to help me find Merlot and kill him? Get revenge?" I asked the dog.

It said nothing because it was a dog but it looked about and jumped through the glass I had shattered and took off down the hallway the way I had come. I could feel that the animal was awakened with my sixth or seventh sense. It just buzzed in the air around the creature. It was probably some experiment on awakening the aura of animals for some sick purpose. I had no idea what for.

I took off after the animal. Neo was hot on my heels.

I followed it back to the domed room and it hung a left, claws skittering across the hexagonal floor panels. It led the way down a long corridor and there was a sealed room behind reinforced glass and lab equipment and computers. My father was on the far side.

The red furred dog scratched at the glass and left deep marks behind but it couldn't get through at my father who was typing away at a keyboard. Then he moved swiftly to another console and withdrew a pendrive for portable data storage. He was trying to make a run for it. I was sure. He tapped a button and metal shutters fell down and sealed my father in to the other room before I could shatter the glass and get to him.

I only had so much time. I saw stairs in the room my father's was in that led upward. That was probably his emergency exit. If I couldn't bust my way into the bunkered room and after him he would escape and I would lose him for sure. I couldn't go around and cut him off. Who knows where that emergency exit actually deposited you.

I activated my semblance and walked past the dog which had fallen back and growled at the metal shutters. I started swinging and denting the metal to tear my way inside. Neo could only sit back and watch as I leveraged my emense strength to try and pry a way through. I succeeded at getting through the metal Inna wide enough hole. Than I shattered the glass and stepped through. My father was gone. The stair way out and up was sealed by a giant vault door, the kind that rolled into place like a bank vault. No way could I rip through that.

All the computer screens were blank and devoid of all previous activity. The room was dreadfully empty and the dog whined behind me.

"Yeah. He's fucking gone. Gods damn it all."

Neo reached down and silently pet the dog once. It growled but let her touch it. It was wary of us and I was frankly wary of it. I suppose we could let it go wild and it would probably be fine. It had aura, after all. Neo walked up to me next. She reached down and pulled my shirt up to reveal my hard chest and stomach covered in yellow and purple bruises.

"Neo!"

She dropped my shirt and glared at me.

"What?"

She stamped a foot.

"Oh by the way I'm dying. Is that what you're looking for?"

She crossed her arms, looked away, and pouted.

"You're right. I should have told you. When Merlot built me he didn't build me to last. I found out in Atlas. I didn't tell you because… I didn't want to worry you. Also I was afraid to. Telling you would have made it real. You know what I mean? But you're right. You had the right to know and not to find out this way. From Merlot, I mean. I'm sorry."

She held out both hands for me like a child. Looking for a hug, I gave it to her. I embraced her warmly and felt her chilly aura against my skin and I wondered not for the first time what my aura tasted like. What was my consistency? I would never know, not for certain. Maybe I would ask Ruby and Weiss sometime.

I had something to write to them about what with that and Merlot's escape. I had been so close.

"Now, what to do about the dog."

Neo looked down at the animal. Then back up at me.

"I am partial to strays, being one myself… let's see what Rosé thinks about it. Come on, boy, you are a boy aren't you? You are. Yep. Come on. Let's got outside. I bet you haven't been outside in ages. You've been stuck in a pod. I know what that's like. Come on, boy," I spoke with affection and a touch of tenderness.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Rosé was waiting patiently for us. Her hand was on the hilt of her sword and she stood ready and firm.

"And?" She asked impatiently. "What happened? Did you get him?"

"Nah he escaped. He got away from me. I'll have to track him down again."

The dog came up beside me and sniffed the pine fresh air.

It walked over and with all the modesty of a dog went to the bathroom on a shrub. Then it came up to Rosé.

"You found a dog?"

"It was an experiment inside. He was doing something to it. I couldn't just leave him in there."

"Are you going to keep it?"

She reached down and the dog let her scratch it's chin and neck and it leaned into her touch.

Neo looked up at me imploringly. She was asking the same question and I guess that I am the boss. Why am I always the boss? Why am I always taking on strays?

"I suppose I am. I'll have to train it and feed it and -"

"Name it!" Rosé exclaimed. "Sorry." She mutely and meekly apologized for interrupting in her excitement.

"That too…" I stared at the tattoo on the animal's face. "Red XIII," I decided. It was as good a name as any.

I reached down and pet the dog. I knew a little about hunting dogs and how useful they could be. This old boy looked like it had seen some battle. It would do fine. I was already training one thing. Why not two?

"Red XIII then. Come on boy," Rosé told the dog as we started to walk away from the laboratory and back towards town. I was wary of Grimm but we had already cut a path through them to get here so I was more relaxed than I had been on the other trip.

The dog followed us along panting. Just one more addition to my party I suppose. And as I said I was partial to strays and this one had been tortured by Merlot same as me. We had a lot in common, this dog and I. I couldn't just let it go. It needed my help. And I could easily help it. So I should. Ruby would approve. Just wait until they hear about this.

We entered town and shacked up at the hotel. They didn't say anything about the dog with me. Probably because I was six feet tall and had a sword as tall as I was. Where did the two hundred and fifty pound huntsman bring his dog? Where ever he wanted, apparently.

The dog curled up in the corner of my room while I climbed into bed. Merlot had escaped me but I did some good today. That counted for something in my books.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	120. Gi Tribe I

**I never liked the talking dog trope. Sorry Red XIII fans but no talking dogs in this story. **

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The dog wasn't a problem. Not nearly as much as it could be or that I thought it would be. It was a smart dog which was trouble in its own right in some ways. Smart animals were often lazy in a queer fashion. Smart people could be the same way.

It had already seen combat and so it knew Grimm. Other simple commands for the animal were easy to instill: stay, come, sit, lay down, heel, fetch. But there were harder commands I wanted the creature to master: track this, point me. I also should familiarize the animal with guns and dust. The last thing I needed was a nervous dog beside me on the battlefield, especially one as big as Red.

Rosé adored the dog. She would lay beside it and stroke it's dark brown fur, running her fingers over its head and scratching its ears. She would rub the chin and neck and it would savor her touch. When she stopped petting it the animal would ask for more attention by setting its paw on her leg or arm. Rosé and the dog got along famously. If I was the animal's master then she was it's best friend.

It was smart and it was abused. That was a tricky combination. But then so was I. It required patience. It needed time to learn that it was safe with me. It needed to be shown that I wasn't like Merlot. And I did have the time to give it what it needed. I would train the animal with Rosé's help in the mornings and evenings and I would train Rosé as well though she was able to be a little more independent with her workouts now. That gave me time to work with the dog.

I was really stretching my hours but it had to be done right. It had fallen into my care and it was up to me to be responsible. I hated that. I was responsible for yet another thing in my crazy fucking life. And the dog had to be taught to use it's semblance if it ever developed one. Rosé wasn't alone in that regard. What a terrible thing to be, responsible.

I was thrown once more into uncharted waters. But that seemed to be pretty much the norm for my life. I was constantly in one dire straight or another at every moment awake or asleep. I wasn't sure why I thought things would become less intense. I guess that one was on me. Silly Cloud. Would you ever learn? Probably not.

The point was that the dog wasn't a problem. I was familiar with trying things I had never done before and training a hunting dog could well be among them. Plus I could see the utility of a hunting dog. How often had I wandered for miles looking for one particular Grimm? Too many. Far, far too many. A dog could change that for me. It could change pretty much everything and open up a host of options that I would totally have no access to if I didn't have one. Like if I had a hunting dog then Merlot wouldn't have escaped from me. I would have caught him. But that meant training and reinforcement. It took discipline to train in any regard.

The dog walked beside the horses as we rode. Neo sat behind me as usual. Her thoughts on the dog were hard to determine but I didn't make it her problem in any sense so she had no real room to complain. She seemed to get along with it. She just could take it or leave it, that's what my interpretation was, at any rate. Unlike Rosé who adored the dog and who was loved right back.

Rosé was progressing well with her own training. She was getting faster and stronger as the days went by. She learned to shield her body with her aura. Pain and I were her teachers both. I made sure she wouldn't forget to shield herself in battle. She had more than average aura, I would say. More than Weiss, Ruby, or Blake but less than Yang and I. It put her in the position that she could tank a number of hits in a real skirmish and she wouldn't have to be stingy about when she took them but she would have to be careful. I made sure that she knew that she wasn't invincible just because she had aura and a weapon now.

I really made sure she knew that. Yuma Kisaragi had had that problem when I ran into her. Peach had her own spree of arrogance or at least she had boldness. My student would have none of that. I'd seen it in my own generation in Cardin Winchester and his team. By the gods, I hadn't thought about him in a long time. Other things had been on my mind rather than him.

Back then I hadn't known my life was fake yet. Back then Pyrrha was alive. Back then I had been infatuated with Weiss. Maybe not everything had changed. I wonder if Cardin is dead. Could be. He wasn't very good. I hadn't been either and I had only survived by chance. I wouldn't call what I went through lucky but I did have a bit of chance or happenstance. It only happened that I was still alive. My old bully could be stone cold gone. Especially if he fought in Beacon's fall. I didn't know whether or not he did. Probably not any more than I had and I barely did anything. I hardly survived. I was still a bit bitter about being alive, that kiss, that fucking locker. What a confusing and terrible day that had been. Life was strange and it had only grown stranger.

We crossed over a river by taking a stone bridge. The water gurgled underneath us as we passed by. The trees around us were in full leaf.

It was difficult to say how far we were from Vale. I measured distance using days instead of kilometers. And who knows how many more small settlements would take days of our time for help. I thought we were making good progress and there was still half a year until Beacon accepted new students come autumn. That was assuming the school was standing once more. It might remain in near ruin with a giant dragon perched on top of it. I wouldn't know. I hadn't seen Beacon in more than a year. I hadn't heard anything either with communication being what it was with the tower down. They might not be reopening the school. That was okay though. Rosé could still be a huntress even if she didn't get to go to Beacon.

I knew she had her heart set on the place but there were alternatives. Shade, Atlas, or Haven. Probably other less famous ones as well. But she could make it into one of the big four if I pushed her properly. Not that I had anything against Beacon. Beacon was the best. But there was no reason to ask for Beacon and only Beacon if she could be welcomed into another school as well. On the off chance she couldn't get into Beacon or if the school wasn't opening its doors in the fall, then it made sense for her to try her luck at another institution.

Her heart seemed set on Beacon, however, I wasn't sure why?

I resolved to ask her.

"Rosé?"

"Yes, sir?" I shuddered. So respectful. No real reason for that. I thought I quashed that over respect.

"It's just Cloud. Cloud and only Cloud," I informed her rather firmly.

She just looked at me while she rode easily. She waited for me to tell her what I wanted to ask her without correcting herself.

"Why do you want to go to Beacon? I mean why Beacon and not some other school?"

"I…Beacon always stood out to me. I always seemed lost whenever I thought about my dreams and the place is a giant lighthouse. It just seemed inevitable that I would go there if I was going to be a huntress. So I guess it sort of drew me in. So whenever I felt lost I would think about the school. My brother was going to go there. He went to Signal. That's where he was when the attack happened. But I suppose he moved on with his training. It always seemed like he was going to go to Beacon. So I think it was sort of inevitable in my head. Does that make sense?"

"A little. I just was wondering because I wanted you to know your options. Beacon is just one of them. By the time autumn comes you'll have your pick of schools."

"Could I continue to train under you? If I didn't get into Beacon or decided that I didn't want to?"

I blanched a little. "I'm not sure… I never really saw myself as a teacher. If you had your pick of schools I think you should take them up on it."

"So you wouldn't keep me around if that's what I wanted?"

"I'd have to think about it. I… can't really see myself saying no. You're my responsibility. I would probably keep training you. I would consider one of the schools, though. That would be a good experience for you. Get a team and a partner and all that jazz. I thought you wanted that," I wondered a little.

"I did. Want that I mean. Or at least I thought I did. But I'm learning so much from you. I don't want that to stop. I… I would miss you."

"I'm not the end all be all. And I'm not dying." Neo pinched me at that lie. I turned and gave her a half-hearted glare. She looked at me innocently. "Anyways we could stay in contact. Especially if communication gets up and running again. And I just want you to know that you have options. What of Beacon isn't opening its doors in fall? I just want you to be ready for that kind of thing. Just in case."

"I'll keep it in mind. But I think Beacon is the school for me."

"That's all I wanted to know."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Live hand," I reminded Rosé as we spared. Her left hand was out hanging as though it was a part of her defenses. At my phrase she snapped her hand back to her chest nice and close where it was protected and safe.

We clashed a little. I telegraphed a thrust at her and she pushed my longsword aside with a turn of her wrist and hips. Then she countered with a horizontal slash towards my neck.

I brought my weapon up and blocked it. She swung down at me diagonally next and I parried that too.

I shoulder checked her in response. I did it fairly lightly but still hard enough to knock her over if she was unsteady. She was buffeted and forced to push-shuffle her feet back to remain standing, but she did remain standing.

She shuffled back towards me with sharp footwork and stabbed her blade forward and down at me in an angle that was hard to block without helping her turn the thrust into a diagonal slash.

So I didn't block. I stepped back and to the side and moved my own feet quickly. I could have flown but there was no reason to do so and most of her opponents wouldn't be able to fly. I shouldn't train her for flying opponents, then.

As I stepped to the side I swung a waist height horizontal slash at her. An angle three as I had taught her and Pyrrha had taught me. She blocked by dropping her weapon in a vertical fashion. She was breathing hard with training in rust red dirt. There were sparse grasses of yellow color in the dry field. This place didn't get a lot of rainfall. There was the occasional cactus on the open plain we fought on.

Red XIII watched with his paws overlapping one another. Tongue out and panting with a giant doggy grin, he lay examining us closely. It was of critical importance to him that he be there just in case Rosé needed something. Even if it meant defending her from me. That dog knew where it's bread was buttered and she was so soft and loving with the animal. She was its person. It loved her.

I really wasn't sure who the dog thought it belonged to. It obeyed me but it also obeyed Rosé. It followed her around camp and let her stroke its fur and scratch it on the neck.

The animal watched us clash with attentive eyes in that regard. I think it was ready to defend Rosé the moment I took it too far.

I never did even as I kicked Rosé's leg out from under her. She hit the rust colored earth. The animal got up at that and walked over to get between us and it licked her on the arm. She tried to push it away but just leaned into her touch with doggy excitement.

I held a hand down and Rosé took it. I easily pulled her all the way to her feet. She was only one hundred thirty pounds with her sword, in full gear, soaking wet. She wasn't heavy. At least not to me and I was able to lift her up with one hand all the way off the ground. I could probably bench press five of her. Crocea Mors weighed more than she did by something like thirty pounds.

Tiny huntresses. Tiny huntresses everywhere. Neo, Ruby, Weiss, Rosé, and even Nora. Nora had been short as fuck. Her energy had made her seem larger. I shuddered as I remembered sheathing my enormous blade in her tiny body. The smile that had been on my face fell to pieces.

Rosé had had a grin but it flattened. "What? What is it?" She wondered.

"It's… it's nothing…" I tried to parry but I didn't have the energy.

Rosé crossed her arms at me. I sighed.

"I just… I just was reminded of my team. And how they died. It still makes me sad whenever I think about it. It happens sometimes. It's nothing to be concerned about."

"You haven't told me how they died. You said that it was Merlot's fault. But nothing else."

"And I'm not going to. I don't want to think about it. Please Rosé let it alone. Drop it. I was thinking about all the small huntresses I know. Like you and Neo and one of my teammates named Nora. It reminded me. I got sad. Now I don't want to think about it anymore."

"You're never going to feel better if you can't talk about it. Repressing it won't do you any good in the long run."

I didn't have a long run. But Rosé didn't need to know about that either.

"I really don't want to talk about how they died. Alright? Damn it Rosé."

The dog growled at my tone. I ignored it. Red XIII could be upset for all I cared.

"Well then talk to me about how they lived."

I sighed. I rubbed my face with one hand. My sword dropped in the other until the tip was in the dust.

"Ren and Nora never got to be together. They were together but not 'together together.' But they could have been. They just never got the opportunity to figure each other out before the end. They both wanted it. They just weren't sure how to make it happen. They confessed that to me separately before they died. Ren would cook for Nora and Nora would speak for Ren. He hardly ever spoke but it gave his words weight. He usually let Nora talk in his stead. And Pyrrha, my partner, she was vibrant. She had a nice laugh that was rare to hear. I bet her that if no one asked her to the dance at Beacon I would wear a dress. I ended up wearing a dress and she laughed at me."

"See? Don't you feel better now?" Rosé asked.

I sighed again. I did a little.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	121. Gi Tribe II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Sheep. Aryas had a lot of sheep. On either side of the grey stone road there were red fences. Penned inside those fences for acres and acres were fluffy livestock out in the pastureland.

The smell was unpleasant for one thing. But it was peaceful so much so that it was disquieting for me. The sky was clear apart from a few pale wisps with the yellow sun pouring down on us. I couldn't tolerate the peace. I was all about action and the calmly milling sheep we're not about that life at all.

I kept my eye on my new dog. The last thing I needed was some kind of incident where I had to pay off some poor farmer over some dead livestock. The dog was well behaved and I really had nothing to fear. It trotted alongside the horses as we rode along. The stone road met the horses' hooves with steady _clops. _

The heart of the town, if it could even be called a town, was just a pocket full of buildings built side by side along the road to Vale. From the way the road bisected through the town and out the other side it seemed as though it was a way-stop for Vale and little more. A few buildings and then acres more of sheep was all there was to it. Pass that and you would pass the entirety of the town and let it recede into a tiny memory.

We would be stopping here at the inn. That happened to be the tallest building in the village. Four stories in all was the height. It was all brick around the base leading up to a rich wood on after upwards. It was so very different from the metal and glass of Atlas which had sleek and smooth spires. It was also much unlike the brick and low buildings of Mantle. It also lacked any elements of Mistrali design with the flaring roofs. This roof was slanted but it had no recurve to it that would make it stand out as Mistrali. No, this was Valean architecture. Plain in a lot of ways. Functional at its maximum.

I looked forward at once to the running water and a fresh shave. I neglected shaving while we camped in the country and that led to a motley of scratchy, itchy facial hair that was too short to be a beard but too long to be stubble. It scratched at me when I turned my head. Course blonde hairs bit into my neck and chin. I'd be more than satisfied once that was gone and taken care of by way of my razor and with the help of a touch of running water. The deep cleaning of my face that would come with moving a slick blade over it was just an added bonus. A gliding metal edge would feel so satisfying. And the burn of any shaving nicks would be pleasant. For the moment I looked and felt scraggly and unkempt. I was too old now to go days between shaves with no one the wiser.

I knew Neo preferred real beds, with feathers or springs to sleep on as opposed to our filthy camp bedrolls. We could wash those here as well. And while we were at it we could resupply on food, and water, and dust. These sorts of towns were good for that kind of thing. Rosé still hadn't mastered dust usage in its raw form let alone eating it. I wanted her to master the raw spells before she consumed any. And, if possible, I'd like to know what her semblance was so we could see how it interacted with the dust she ate. But that was me getting ahead of myself and putting the cart before the horse.

Of course I would like to know about her semblance. She would too, I was sure. I just needed to be patient. I spent more than half my life without my own semblance. It took about a year and half for it to develop after I had my aura unlocked by Pyrrha's. She had unlocked my aura. Now I had unleashed Rosé's. It was an interesting human chain we made. Each person being a link. I wonder how far back it goes. Someone must have unlocked Pyrrha's aura. And someone else must have unlocked theirs and so on.

If Pyrrha could see me now would she be pleased? I'd like to imagine so. And Neo would like a bowl of ice cream but that didn't put a spoon in her hands. Pyrrha would be horrified at some of the shit I had pulled. Before I ran into Weiss and Blake in Atlas I had been on a tear. Bodies kept piling up around me. I tried to be different now. Rosé was helping keep me in check but I still killed people. I still had to. That didn't sound like a good justification and I doubted that Pyrrha would have bought it. She had a noble soul - unstained by murder and theft. She was nothing like me now. Rosé was a little like her. If I stretched things then I could see it. I didn't particularly enjoy that comparison though so I didn't look for it often. It just happened sometimes.

I know Rosé enjoyed her hot showers. She liked them long and hot and steamy. She liked to- well, smell fresh as a rose, I suppose. There was none of that to be had whilst bivouacking in the foothills near cold rivers. The best you could do was wade into freshly melted stream water and wash the thick grime off yourself but it was cold as ice and you couldn't do much more about the smell.

I did a lot of training. I did a lot of sweating. I stank. It happened that I also liked hot showers and getting rid of that stench. It wasn't just a Rosé thing. I enjoyed being clean just as much as the next guy. I just wasn't the daughter of a nobleman used to cleanliness all my life like Rosé was. In my travels across Anima there were long stretches when I went without showering. But my formative year at Beacon, the first real year of my life, I had spent with daily showers so I preferred them to not.

I dismounted at the entrance to the inn and tied both mine and Rosé's horse to some posts out front. The road was wide enough for cars but this place hadn't left horses behind. Nothing quite like grass fed transportation.

I walked into the inn with my party on my heels. There was a cute green eyes girl with blonde hair behind the counter. She had an oval face and her hair was curly. She was short. Not Neo short but Weiss short. She was this tiny tawny thin thing. She looked up at me as I entered from behind her counter. She looked bored, leaning on the counter with one hand supporting her chin but when I walked in her eyes lit up a little at having something to do. She straightened up, pulling her palm free of her face.

"Hello!" Her voice was bright. "My name is Olivia. How can I help you? Sir huntsman?"

"My name is Cloud Strife. This is Neo and Rosé," I gestured. "We need two rooms and two stalls for my horses and some feed. I also have a hunting dog that's staying with me. I'm willing to pay whatever fee or make any deposit necessary for it to stay with me."

"Right away," she told me brightly with rosy cheeks. "Two rooms. Two stalls. Feed. And a dog," she muttered to herself as she typed in a computer. "And… here's your total. And your room keys. I'll take your horses around to their stalls. Anything else I can do for you?" She handed me keys and a receipt as she spoke.

"That's all for now. Thank you, Olivia."

"It's no problem. Have a nice day, sir Cloud."

"Showers. Finally. Don't mind if I do," Rosé said as formed over her room keys. I gave her one and Neo the other.

"Red; heel." I ordered. Then I started climbing the steps to my own room with the dog magnetized to my wake.

Rosé and Neo entered their room and soon I heard the sound of running water. Almost immediately after we split up, in fact.

I made use of my own bathroom as well and I took my razor to my face. There was a small square mirror over the sink. I saw myself standing shirtless. There were the large clawed scars left in my stomach by Tyrian. But more than even that there were deep purple bruises and splotches of sickly yellow where I was periodically bleeding in small amounts internally and near the surface of my skin. I looked away from my ruinous chest with rapidity. Then I showered to tidy myself up. I took my time and I savored it. The hot water running down my back felt like the hands of a massage. I was sure I had dark patches across my ribs on my back just like I had on my abdomen.

Then I exited the bathroom to see Red waiting for me with his head on his paws. He looked up at me with sad dog eyes so I reached down and scratched his ears and he wagged his tail with a steady _thump-thump _against the wood floor.

Water was still running in the other room so I assumed that Neo was taking her own shower now. That was if Rosé went first. How they worked that out was none of my business to my thinking. I just leaned back on the feather bed and waited for the sounds of the plumbing to cease. I was pretty sure we were the only guests at this inn. They probably didn't see a great deal of travelers and most travelers were as likely to travel on through without stopping as they were to stay a night.

The hissing of pipes stopped in the other room but I kept waiting. Whichever one just got out of the shower would need a few minutes to get dressed or whatever. They wouldn't be ready to go out shopping just yet. Red let out one of those lay down sighs through his nose that dogs often release. It was a sort of bored contented noise. I empathized with it but could do nothing about it but scratch his belly which he exposed to me for more attention.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I knocked on the girls' door three hard times once I figured I had waited long enough.

Rosé answered the door. She pulled it open and looked up at my face.

"Are we ready to go shopping or do you ladies need more time?"

"I'll go. I don't know about Neo…" Rosé trailed off and turned back to look at where Neo was relaxing on one of the beds. Her tiny form was spread eagle and hardly covered the bed even at her furthest reaches. She held up a hand. Then she held one thumb down.

"I'll bring you back something to eat, then. You just relax," I informed her.

Neo switched her hand around to a thumbs up and receded into the bedspread. She let out a relaxed little sigh as she let her hand droop.

"You and me then," I told Rosé.

"And Red," she cut in, closing the door behind her as she stepped out into the hallway.

"And Red," I agreed. I patted my leg and turned in the direction of my room. "Come on boy. Heel. That's a good boy."

We marched out of the inn into the quiet deserted main street that split the small village.

"It's so quiet. Where are the people?" Rosé wondered, looking around.

"I'm not sure." It was midday. The village center should be about as busy as it got and there was no one but us out. There was nothing but a gentle breeze.

I walked into the dust shop with the chime of a bell. There was an old man behind the counter. "Howdy stranger," he greeted.

"Not so bad. Yourself?" I returned.

"Oh same old same old. What can I do you for?"

"Burn and shock. Uncut. Three of each," I ordered.

"You know what you like, I see."

"Hey where is everyone?" Rosé asked.

"Well today is tribute day."

"Tribute day?" I asked. "What's that."

"The Branwens demand a price for not sacking the town and today they are coming to collect. Food. Water. Dust. Money. A cut of every little thing is their due. That'll be eighteen hundred lien, if you please."

"Good gods are you serious with that price?" I demanded. "It's highway robbery."

"It's that or nothing," the old man affected.

"I'm going to care of your little Branwen problem free of charge. Think you could demand a reasonable price."

"Can you really stop the Branwens?"

"Uh yeah. Easily. I'll kill them and be on my way. Cut me some slack here."

"These ain't just any pack of bandits. They've got aura, an' semblances."

"Work with me here. I'm trying to do the right thing. The Branwens are a piece of cake."

The old man leaned close. "You don't understand. Lady Branwen can be here herself in a heartbeat. It's one of her lieutenants out there raiding this town."

"You're saying I could lure Khutan Branwen out of the hole she's hiding in? Fine. I'll pay your price for dust. But I'm going to kill her as well."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Are you really going to kill Raven Branwen? I know you're good, master, but this is Khutan Branwen. She's legendary," Rosé informed me as we walked out of the dust shop. Red followed her closely with doggy incomprehension.

"Rosé… I almost had her once. I had her on the ropes. But she ran away from me. I'm going to kill her. I've only gotten stronger since I last fought her. And faster. If she doesn't teleport away from me again I can destroy her. And I will. She's bad news and she has to go down," I cut right back at Rosé. "I almost fucking had her. This time I'll put her down for sure. Let's eat and then wait for the bandits to show up. You're not going to get squeamish again on me are you?"

"I'm not exactly comfortable with killing people."

"That's a good thing. I'd be worried if you were. But you have to see the necessity of it. There's no prison that can hold Raven Branwen. She's a portal maker - probably the most powerful long range teleporter on the planet. That's how she united all the bandit clans. And I'm going to cut the head off this snake. She runs this show from Mistral to Vale. She owns one and half continents. If I have a shot at taking her down I need to fire away. Can you live with that? Because now is the time to say something."

"You really have to kill her?" Rosé asked me with big blue eyes turned upwards.

"Yeah. I really do. And her men as well. Price gaugers or not I'm saving this town. I'll be doing the whole world a favor when I do it too. She has got to be public enemy number one for Mistral. They had a huge price on her head."

Rosé opened her mouth.

"The money isn't the point," I forestalled with a raised hand. "I don't need it. It just goes to show what a good thing it is I'll be doing."

"Fine. I suppose this has to happen. Even I know that Raven Branwen has to be stopped. Her bandits would attack Winhill as well. She's an enormous threat. Can you really beat her?"

"I can destroy her. I just have to stop her from running away."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	122. Gi Tribe III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I watched from the window in my room in the inn out onto the single road that ran through Aryas. I was waiting for the bandits to make their way into town and collect their due. Or at least the due that they perceived. Red stood by me and was pacing in circles. I think the dog was feeding off my anxious energy. Though I wasn't afraid of the Branwens I was wary and I was watching and waiting. I suppose that counted as anxious a little. The dog kept going around and around like a broken toy. I watched it a little before I shifted my gaze back out the little window.

I was also preparing myself to kill again. I lit a bowl and smoked it. I exhaled out the square window. The leaves and crystals burned in the little pipe and that pleasant nausea washed over me. I would be killing soon. A worthy opponent perhaps as well. It took more than your average hunter to keep up with me as I was now at what was probably my peak. Raven Branwen was such a huntress. Or she used to be. I was going to really pit myself against her as well. A life or death battle with only one of us walking away. I was hungry for that in a way that was far beyond food but I felt it in my stomach nonetheless.

It wasn't a bad thing per se. I suppose Rosé would view it as such. Ruby would too. The dark terror inside of me that wanted to kill people was a natural part of me. It was usually something I should resist - usually. Today was different. Today I would get to indulge it and feed the beast. Here was the thing about that monster. It would never be fed and fully satisfied. The more I gave in to it the more it wanted from me. The more ground I gave the more ground it took. I step back an inch here, it takes a mile there.

It was just as before when I killed, and killed, and killed and I was never content. I just kept spiraling into the mayhem. It was so easy to do and get lost inside of. Was that what was happening here? I didn't think so but I might not be a very good judge. I was supposed to conquer myself and not let something like this rule over me. Was I? Had I? Would I even know?

I tapped the ash out of my pipe out the window where it sprinkled to the ground as red hot snow. White with red embers inside of it. The little flakes fluttered fluidly and fully forward to the filthy floor.

I breathed in the dizziness. It buzzed my skull, towards the back. I exhaled and relaxed.

I saw them come into town from my perch. I grabbed my sword harness and put it on my back. Then I walked with heavy bootfalls out of my inn room.

"Master Cloud…"

"It's still just Cloud," I answered Rosé. "Seriously say it. _Cloud_."

"Cloud…" she whispered.

"What's up?" I asked back. I knew what the fuck was up. I was just being an asshole for the sake of it. Because I could. Gods above I hated myself. Why couldn't I be a good person even now? There just had to always be something.

"I just wanted you to know that you don't have to do this. There could be another way. You could look for a better way."

"Someone with real power has to stop Raven. That means me. Stay here, Rosé, unless you think you are willing to help out and kill some people."

She said nothing. She wasn't ready. She was just a kid.

_So are you. _

I didn't argue with that little voice in my head. All the logic was on its side. It would just make me lopsided to fight back. And I had a high that I was trying to enjoy. That at least was nice and I was allowed to have that.

"Neo!" I called out. She appeared beside Rosé. "We have some work to do. Won't you give me a hand?"

She nodded promptly and pulled along her parasol.

"Why does it have to be you?" Rosé demanded. "We can just leave."

"Because it can be me. And could you really leave these sheep herders to the bandit tribes? Could you really move on without doing anything? That's fucked. Isn't it?" I tagged her.

"Not as fucked as killing people," she swore at me for the first time. Good. Get a spine on her back. I was the first person that she really needed to stand up to. Her eyes were tear-flooding. She tried to hold back her anger and frustration. I heard in the tightness of her voice. But she didn't get it. I had no choice.

"Letting them get hurt when you could have saved them is just as bad as killing people if not worse," I disagreed right back.

I shifted my shoulder and swung the enormous sword harness. I reached up behind my head and rubbed the long red shaft. Neo investigated her stiletto. She would only be too happy to help me kill and probably torture these gangsters.

I walked out of the inn to meet the small group of well armed bandits. I paced opposite them and they drew up short when they saw me. I gathered up and gave the grip a tug. The broadsword came free in all it's six foot glory. I lowered the tip down at my quarry.

There were five of them in total and I could feel that they had their auras unlocked by the warning pressing against the inside of my brain. Two girls and three guys just stared right back at me. They readied their weapons. A spear here. A sword there. An assault rifle or two with long barrels. The lead girl drew two wicked recurved knives. She grinned at me. I frowned back at her. My face was like that of a statue.

The sun was harsh and it was right in my eyes in this shadeless plain. The whole sky was painted pink and red with the setting sun.

"Oh?" The girl asked. "We got ourselves a huntsman. A real hero type."

"You Branwen's local lieutenant?" I asked simply.

"Clearly," the girl flashed me a cocky grin with straight white teeth. She had brown hair and vivid lilac eyes. More like Yang's than Robin Hill's. That was where that line of comparison ended because unlike Yang's angular face the girl had rounder features.

"Will she come for you if you're in trouble?"

"I don't know. Never been in enough danger to find out."

"You are today."

Neo appeared right next to the girl and stabbed her right in the back. That was what kicked everything off, I think so at least.

I hovered towards them at sixty miles an hour and put my boot right into the guy with the spear's chest. Then I kicked him again with my other foot. I was taking actual steps in the dust. Then I brought my bronze and silver blade around and down on him. I shattered his aura like glass and killed him in all of a second. When did I get so strong? I have changed so much since that day I first killed a man. Now they dropped like flies around me.

I became a tempest of whirling blades. I sliced right through the assault rifle a girl had managed to level at me. I stepped into her range and kneed her in the chest. I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and I tossed her threw a window.

I took a hovering half step forward and swung upwards like a golf swing. The fast blow had the force of a train behind it. It lifted the boy with the sword off of his feet, and knocked him up into the air. I thrust my sword forward into the last boy's aura. I pulled upwards and flew into the air where the kid with the sword was still falling.

I slammed them both together and then I smashed them both into the dirt. The boy with the sword rolled on the ground off the kid with the assault rifle. He was moaning and holding his chest. I walked over him and hit him in the skull with the tip of my boot. He collapsed to the ground where he had been kneeling with his strings all cut.

The kid with the assault rifle made to get to his feet and to his credit he stood all the way up. But then in a single horizontal slash I flew over to him and made him fall in two pieces.

The girl with the gun climbed out of the window I tossed her through. She looked at the carnage and the mess I had made out of her pals. She dropped what was left of her weapon. She just tossed onto the ground and she held her hands up. I turned to Raven's Lieutenant. She had Neo's blade between two of her ribs and was in a nasty looking arm lock besides.

I exhaled and put the tip of my sword in the ground.

I let go of the long red handle and walked over to where the Lieutenant was subdued. Nice and slowly. I crouched down to look her in the face.

She spat in my face. I reached out tore a bit of cloth off of her outfit and wiped my face off. She struggled in Neo's grasp as I did it. Then I put one knee down in the dust and grabbed her by the jaw and forced her to look at me.

I stared for a long moment.

"I'm going to start beating you now. I'll stop as soon as Raven shows up. Then I'm going to kill her."

"And what if she doesn't?"

"Well then I won't stop."

I punched her across the face. Her head snapped around on her thin neck and I watched her spit out a globule of blood. Then I kicked her in her floating ribs. I broke one of them. Neo grinned up at me as she held on tight. The girl howled in agony. I stepped forward on her foot until little bones began popping.

"P-p-please," she started sobbing. Tears streamed down her pretty little face. I smacked across her cheek bone with my fist hard enough that I felt it in the bones of my hand. She rolled with that punch and was strangely quiet with just a dull whimper leaving her lips.

"That's enough." I looked up. There she was: Raven Branwen. She was stepping out of a swirling red and black portal. It collapsed behind her. I stared at her hard. She wouldn't confront me if she didn't think she could win. She had a trick to pull over me. It might just work too. But by the gods it better kill me. Or I would destroy her. I had a new move as well.

Her long black mane flowed out from behind her and she had her long dust blade in its sheath. Or blades as it were. Her weapon was a little like Weiss's with a rotating series of blades.

"I'm surprised." I walked over to my sword and pulled it free of the road. "Even if you noticed I wasn't sure you would show up. You didn't for the last two groups of bandits I killed. Why should this one be any different? And you know you can't beat me."

"Big talk," Raven growled at me. "I have something special for you this time. I got it just for you."

She pulled her blade on me. It was white and gold like the sun. And like the sun it was softly glowing. White dust. Her blade was infused with white dust.

"Expensive," I noted calmly. She could probably kill me with that. I leveled my blade at her. "Neo, kill the girl."

Neo pulled her knife through the lieutenant's ribs and slit her throat. She choked on her blood and died in the street.

I paced to stand right in front of Raven.

"You and I have a score to settle," Raven whispered.

I was already tired - so dead tired of talking. After the shit I went through every single night there was no way death or Raven scared me.

I activated my semblance with a thought of charge. Raven swung her sword. It lit up the orange evening day with a flash of golden light. The power of it tore deep into my aura and it flicked me through one of the buildings and back out the other side in torrent of raw energy unlike anything I had ever been exposed to. It seemed to unmake the world around us as the beam flashed. It easily tore away two thirds of my aura in a single blow.

But it just didn't kill me.

And Raven's sword crumbled into the wind.

She took her shot and failed.

That was it. That was her ace in the hole. And it didn't work. I was still kicking. So I flew like I had been launched from a canon and I used my greatest trick. I Omni-slashed her. I started with a massive overhead strike with both hands. Then I did a diagonal thrust forward down from the left. Then I hit her with a slash from the right side. I struck four times horizontally. Each blow held her in the air for the next as I let loose with all my power. I thrust into her chest and yanked upwards before I finished her off with a falling hammering slice.

She fell apart like her blade had. She just crumbled to nothing and fell in pieces. She dropped the revolver with the blades in it and the handle of her weapon.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Did you watch?" I asked Rosé at the inn.

"No." She was curt with me. She was none too pleased. "Did you have fun?" She sort of snarled it out at me.

"No," I answered just as tersely. "No I didn't. Not this time. Neo did. I think. But not me."

"Do you regret it?"

"Not a bit. Raven had to die. The world is a better place without her in it. The number of killers has decreased by one."

"You can't take everything on yourself."

"But I should take as much as I can. And I was able to take this. This was what I was able to do for the world. I can't slay hunger. But I can bring some peace. With Raven dead there is a little more peace in the world. Her bandit clans will collapse without her."

"But not for you. Don't you deserve peace?"

"I will never have true peace. It's not a question of whether or not I deserve it. I'm sorry, Rosé. We'll be leaving first thing in the morning so get your rest in. We should make it to Vale this week. You'll be able to see your brother again. You can also decide whether you want to keep learning from me. Now that you know me a bit better you should do some thinking about that."

"Of course I want to keep learning from you. How can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time?"

"Story of my life," I laughed a little. "Do some thinking about it anyways. You'll have your pick of tutors in Vale."

"What makes you say that?"

"You're talented and I'm not just saying that. You picked up swordplay fast and your aura training is going well. The only place you're a little behind where I'd like you to be is dust usage. But that's coming along too. You're a natural. Anybody would be happy to teach you."

"Except you," she accused.

"Of course I'm happy to teach you. Who says I'm not?"

"You keep trying to get rid of me."

"That's because you'd be better off with someone actually capable of teaching you. I'm messed up. But you know that."

"I don't want somebody else. I want you."

"Alright. Alright. Fine. I promise not to pawn you off on anybody else. Sound fair? I just want what's best for you."

"That's all I wanted. It… does bother me. Some of the things you do. But you challenge it. That makes it better. I can forgive you all of the crimes of your past if you just help me with my future. That's what I really want. And I want the best for you too. I can't be the only person in your life who does. There are the people you write to. They probably want the best for you as well. You can't keep doing this to yourself. You have to let go."

"Letting go would be a problem," I managed to bite the words out through grit teeth. "I can't afford to tighten up or to relax. I have to remain as I am or bad things will happen. Trust me on that. I'm this whole sort of fucked up mess. It's bad. That I do confess. And I can't go on living like this."

"So you'll kill yourself? Not using a gun but with your work?"

"I can't imagine dying any other way but fighting. Going down swinging. I told you that this job will kill me. Take me at my word even though I am a scoundrel. I've gotta die sometime. It might as well be on my own terms. Get some sleep Rosé. Things are always better after a restful night's sleep."

"You… you hypocrite," she stammered out - more shocked than angry.

"Yeah," I agreed.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	123. My Return I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Summertime in Vale wasn't something I had ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It had been autumn when I had been enrolled in Beacon. It had been so fake - my transcripts, my memories, my life. Seasons changed with time and spring had to give way. Vale was nestled down in the crook of this valley between high purple mountains and soft red forests.

I had almost forgotten how big cities could get. Not like Winhill which had been large in its own right, but a place of truly million and half people. That's as big as cities got on this planet. That's about how big Vale was and it spread out across the bosom of the valley.

"Well we made it. Are you planning on seeing your family?" I was selling the horses at a considerable mark down with the papers indicating their stock. They changed hands for a tiny fraction of the Lien they had been bought for.

"I'm not sure. It's been such a long time. I've changed so much. What do you plan on doing?"

"I want to see Beacon. Aside from that we'll continue your training and get a membership at a gym where we can spar. No other real plans. We need to get you Beacon-ready. There's only a few short months left until school starts up. And that's assuming they're taking on students. Let's see how far along the rebuilding is going. Neo, you better get in disguise."

Neo's form shifted in a blur of pink triangles that washed over her like a wave.

"If anyone asks, her name is Mint," I informed Rosé. "Let's go."

From one of the guarded gates we made our way past multistory buildings. There was a street and a sidewalk on either side. There were holographic street lights and signs and it was all so heart wrenchingly familiar. I used to run these streets. Back then when I had a team and time off from school. It haunted me with every step along with my shadow. We made our way to where the airship shuttled people to and fro from Beacon tower. At a distance the dragon was still perched on the side of the tower turned to stone. Aside from that and the ruined tower the school looked whole.

I held my stomach and felt a wave of nauseating nostalgia as the air ship transported us from the city to the school. I managed to hold down my breakfast despite the motion sickness which washed over me. I felt the familiarity in my bones. Nothing had forestalled my return.

I stepped off the ship with relief. There were construction workers moving all about and cones set up with orange tape. There was scaffolding by the food court's giant windows. People were lifting new giant glass windows into place where the old ones had been shattered. The architecture seemed the same. Arches and glass of olive grey and green.

My stomach lurched in a way that had nothing to do with the airship but still left me feeling motion sick.

Before I realized what I was doing I passed under some orange tape and I heard Rosé call out for me but I ignored it. I walked past the statue of the hero out front without a second glance.

I walked inside the atrium where Ozpin gave his opening speech.

"You there! Stop this minute. You're-"

I turned to the new familiar voice. I towered over the blonde woman with the purple and black cape and the riding crop.

"-Jaune Arc? Is that you?"

"Not anymore," I whispered looking down at the green eyed disciplinarian. "You rebuilt it. It looks good. It looks the same." My voice was pitched low. "It's good to see you, Professor Goodwitch."

"Why, I haven't seen you since black out day." The professor looked up at me with some measure of shock on her face. "Where's your team? Ms. Nikos? Mr. Lie and Ms. Valkyrie? What do you mean 'not anymore?'"

"Pyrrha died on black out day. The same woman that killed Ozpin killed her for the maiden's powers. Salem killed Ren and Nora. I'm the only one left. I changed my identity. It's Cloud Strife now."

She blinked at me with her mouth slightly agape. "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine. Team RWBY is safe. They're all still alive. You should be happy to know that."

"And indeed I am. I feel we have much to discuss. You look so different. Can I make an appointment with you? I'm busy now but I feel we should talk. You know about the maidens, do you know about Ozpin's status?"

"Alive and in Atlas mastering his new body. The relics are safe but the relic of knowledge had to be moved. Leonardo Lionheart turned on Ozpin. Spring, fall, and winter are safe. I don't know the status of summer. Gods damn. It's been a long time. And you're in the dark about so much that has happened. I'll be sure to fill you in. My schedule is open. I assume you're swamped so where ever you can fit me in is good."

"I am grateful to you for that. And for the good news. I had been worried. But what has your role been in all this?" She was scanning her scroll as she spoke. I could see she had her calendar open through the glass but it was reversed for me.

"My role? I suppose I fight the agents of Salem now. As best as I am able."

"You? You'll forgive me if I find that hard to believe. Can you manage to meet me tomorrow at four o'clock? I have an opening then."

"Sure. No problem." I pulled out my own scroll and added it to my calendar. "I'll see you then. Sorry to wander in here. I lost myself for a moment. Will you be opening your doors come autumn?"

"That is the plan but we're struggling to be on schedule. Why? Do you plan on attending?"

"Me? No. Not me. A girl I've been training has her heart set on this place. Well you seem very busy. I won't keep you any longer."

"It was a pleasure for me to meet you again, Mr. Strife. And again I am sorry about your team."

"Yeah, me too. And it's alright. I've learned to live with it. I'll just be on my way."

I took a long look around the atrium and made my way to the exit.

"Master Cloud!"

"Damn it Rosé. What's my name?"

Stubborn little thing.

"Enough about that." The sass! "Why did you go in? What happened?"

"I met my old combat professor. She's probably going to be headmistress. She's over seeing the reconstruction but I'm meeting with her again tomorrow. They plan on having their doors open in the fall so that's good news for you."

"Did you get what you needed?"

"Yeah. I suppose that I did. More than I hoped for. Come on. I've seen enough. Let's head back to Vale. We have to find a place to set up shop."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Back in Vale we found a gym that had aura measuring equipment and the like. Then we set up in a hotel. I worked Rosé over at the gym. I made her lift weights as well as spar with me. I had the cash available to me that was online now. Banking infrastructure was working internationally it seemed.

I sat down and wrote a letter to Ruby and Weiss. I explained how I made it to Vale and lost my father. At the same time I mentioned my new dog and how I killed Raven Branwen at long last. I also wrote about meeting Goodwitch and informing her of their survival. Team RWBY were tough cookies, one and all.

I wished them well and sent them my love and affection.

All the next day my upcoming meeting with Goodwitch loomed over me. I could hardly start anything like looking for work because it would just be interrupted. I had told her my schedule was open so maybe that was on me but this was important.

I took the elevator up to the headmaster's old office. It reminded me of a fish tank with the glass on all sides. This was it. This was where Pyrrha had died. It was rebuilt. The only new feature was the enormous stone dragon on the side of the tower.

When the elevator doors dinged open I stepped out and looked around. Professor Goodwitch was seated behind a desk in the center of the room as was busy with paperwork of some sort. So much so that she hardly looked up at my entrance.

"Mr. Arc or rather…" she trailed off uncertainly. My new title was throwing her for a loop.

"It was Strife. Cloud Strife," I answered simply. She gestured and I took a seat.

"I meant no offense."

"There was none taken."

"It has been a long time. I must ask how you came to know about the maidens and relics."

"Oscar told us a little himself but it was mostly Qrow. They needed more hands on deck in the fight against Salem and my team and team RWBY fit the bill. Weiss is the winter maiden now. Winter Schnee was the winter maiden but she was killed by Cinder Fall."

"I'm afraid I don't know Cinder Fall."

"She was the fall and spring maiden for a time. Fought with glass and used dust sewn into her clothes. She was the one that killed Ozpin and Pyrrha."

"But you said fall and spring were secure."

"And they are now. Those powers are Penny's. Penny Polendina that is. Cinder Fall is dead now."

"How did that happen."

"Penny and I killed her. It was mostly Penny."

"I see. You said Leonardo Lionheart betrayed Ozpin. How? Why?"

"I imagine that he did it because Salem is scary. And he let the spring maiden into Haven to steal the relic of knowledge. He also set up a bunch of local hunters to die. To weaken Mistral. It was pretty bad. Things are still probably pretty bad over there. But communication should be back up soon. General Ironwood has a plan. He's turning the festival stadium into a communication satellite. It should be able to get communication running even with Beacon tower in disrepair."

"We haven't been able to fix it. We need Atlas engineers…"

"Well it should be solved regardless."

"You said that you hunt the agents of Salem? Which other agents?"

"There was Tyrian Callows and Mercury Black. They're both dead now. Then there's Hazel Rainart. A big dude with a pain nullifying semblance, you know him?"

The professor nodded at me so I went on to bite the bullet.

"Then there's my sisters. And me."

She just sort of stared at me.

"Your sisters and you? I don't understand."

"When I was here flailing it was because I was a sleeper agent of sorts for Salem. I was grown in a test tube by a mad man named Merlot. I didn't know this back then but I was grown from Salem's DNA. She's my mother. And I have sisters. My sisters are less sympathetic to our side than I am. I know Ozpin only let me in to the school to see if I worked for Salem. Did you know that?"

She gave a slow and wary nod at me. As though I was a snake ready to bite her.

"Well I was. My Mother and I share minds in a way. But Ozpin taught me how to defend myself from her influences. There was a bad time, however, one in which she took control over my body. She made me kill Ren and Nora."

I finished my tale. There was nothing more to say. Paper fell through the professor's fingers.

"How can I trust you, then?"

"You can't. Not fully. That's why I left Atlas. Too many maidens and relics in one place. It was my responsibility to leave and keep my friends safe."

"Was that when you killed for the first time?"

"No. No. That came earlier. I unlocked my semblance and it makes me stronger and faster. I sort of ripped this bandit in half. Just went right through him. I've killed a lot of people since then. I've lost count. I killed Adam Taurus and Raven Branwen as well. And dozens if not hundreds of gangsters and other criminals in both Atlas and Mistral."

"You killed Raven Branwen? _You_?" The wonder and incredulity in her voice was well deserved. After my pitiful showing here.

"Hard to believe considering how bad I was at school, isn't it? I have her revolver sword and handle as proof. Back at the hotel I'm staying at. Do you have any questions for me? Gosh so much has happened. Sorta so much to say all at once. Hard to believe it myself."

"You can resist Salem's influence over your mind? Is it some sort of mind magic?"

"My sisters, my Mother, and I are all different branches of the same tree. We flow together in a way that is hard to describe if you can't feel it yourself. I have weapons against her but she has her own against me as well. I'm constantly at war. She tries to press on my mind and I fight back. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense," I explained.

"If what you say is true… you must admit this is all hard to believe. It also implies that you're a dangerous threat. If you have grown so powerful then shouldn't I take care of you?"

"I'm dying anyways. I might not fight back. Merlot didn't build me to last. I'm going to die from that unless something else gets me first. Why not you?" I tagged her with my question.

"Do you know how long you have?" She asked me.

"No idea. But not terribly long. I bleed internally. I'm dying quickly. My body aches. Go ahead and strike me down. I won't resist."

"I won't strike a defenseless former student of mine."

"Then we are at an impasse. How will you deal with me?"

"How were you dealt with in Atlas?" She wondered.

"I was recruited into the military and given antipsychotics to help with my battle against Salem. They didn't work. I was treated for PTSD with psychotic features but I was allowed to serve and fight monsters and people for the military. Then I had to do the right thing. I had to leave. That brings us to the present. How will you deal with me?" I gave her the real question once more.

"I honestly do not know. If I take you at your word then you need help or to be stopped but if I am indeed taking you at your word I shouldn't help you or stop you. I am at a loss. The safe option would be to imprison you but you have committed no crime. I have no means of holding you or dealing with you," she looked so drop dead tired in that moment I couldn't help but empathize with her.

"You could keep a friendly eye on me. That would do fine. Otherwise you should leave me to my business. Don't make this harder than it has to be. For me or for yourself."

"I'm to just let you go?" She wondered.

"Are you going to keep me?" I fired back. "I have a student to look after and work I can do for Vale. It would be a pity for you to put a stop to me. But I do confess that it is possible. I have already stated I won't fight back. You can put me wherever you want."

"You're rather forcing my hand…" she trailed off. Once more totally unsure.

"A little. So, professor, what's it gonna be?"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	124. My Return II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

In the end she had to let me go. It was a good thing because I didn't want to come to blows over it. The important thing was that someone with some real power knew of my condition in Vale. That was a win in my book. I wasn't sure if Professor Goodwitch could stop me if I went on a rampage but it was something. Her telekinesis would be hard even for me to get around. I'm not saying I couldn't do it. It would just be hard to pull off. I'd have to close the gap fast and - here I was thinking about killing, again. For no real reason either. I just couldn't help myself I guess.

I had a serious problem.

"What's this?" I asked Rosé. I went back to the hotel we were staying in. The hotel room walls were painted a deep purple with green card carpet on the floors. There was a spinning fan in the room over the only bed and just across the bed was a window that looked out into the mountains which surrounded Vale.

There she was holding a flier sitting on my white and soft blue covered bed next to Red XIII. She was running her fingers along the animal's head in an absent minded way while she read from the paper. She and the dog were depressing the bed where they sat.

"It's uh - nothing. Just some stuff. Don't worry about it."

"Don't try and hide it; I already saw it. What's got your gizzard?"

"It's a flier. For a tournament. I was thinking about asking you if I could enter into it."

"You hardly need my permission. I'm not your parent. Who, by the way, you haven't gone to see at all. What's up with that? If you're on bad terms with your folks just say so. I'm right there."

"I'm not on bad terms with them; it's just the timing - and my training - and I was thinking about showing them with the tournament that I can do this. Do you know what I mean?"

"No," I answered. "You haven't explained anything. You're all over the place."

"Okay. Whew," she exhaled hard and tried to calm down but her next words came out in an excited rush. "I want to ask my parents to watch me compete. So they can see how far I've come. As well as my brother. I don't want them thinking I'm still some kid."

"You are a kid though."

She positively glared at me for that. The heat surprised me.

"What?" I asked. "You're sixteen. _I'm_ still a kid. Don't look at me like that."

"You are most certainly not a kid. You have too much wisdom. You have… adult relationships," she bit out the phrase quickly like it might burn her tongue. "Or have had them. I'm assuming. I'm not prying or anything. I'm just saying."

"You think this is about sex?" She flushed pink as her hair. "What? You brought it up! And sex doesn't make you not a kid. And yeah I've had it. It really isn't such a big deal. It's just something people do. What? What?!"

"None of this is the point! I'm supposed to be mature now."

"You can't even talk about sex without turning so red I'm worried you might faint."

"With you! This is about my parents and brother!"

"Alright quit yelling. I'd be more than happy to help you enter a tournament."

"But do you know what I mean? I want to impress them. I really want to show what I can do. See?"

"Not really."

"Well what's your relationship with your parents like."

"Bad," I deadpanned. In a word it was bad. "But you want to do well."

"I want to win. I really want to impress them and show off a little."

"Okay. Winning. My partner competed in them a bunch before she went to Beacon, she won a bunch of them."

"But do _you_ have any experience?"

"Sure. I fought in the Vytal festival. The first round. After that we let my partner do her thing and run away with it. She was really good. And I have experience with, like - killing people in real combat. So there's that. Or did you forget just because I said the word sex. See there you are blushing again. Like a virgin."

"I am a virgin," she hissed out at me.

"No shit. That's a cute blush you've still got going on."

She hit me with a little fist. "Gods! Stop it! And I'm not supposed to be cute anymore. I'm grown up now so… so… I'm not supposed to be cute!"

I laughed heartily. "Yeah, real grown up. Not cute. Got it."

"So you'll help me win?"

"Yeah, sure as much as I am able. I'll be your coach and give you advice before each round or whatever I'm allowed to do. By the way, we're heading to a shooting range later and you're checking out guns."

"Guns?"

"Yeah. Guns. So you can figure out how to shoot. And maybe see if you want to combine your weapon with a gun. Your birthday is coming up, right? I'll buy you something mechashift and nice before the tournament. A real huntress weapon for sure. You can say goodbye to your training wheels blade."

"Falchion."

"Sure. Well you don't have to scrap it but all your competition will have real huntsmen weapons. You had better have one too and know how to use it. When's the tournament?"

"Still a month out. You think we have time?"

"Sure. It's all we'll be doing. That and training Red." The dog perked up at it's name being said. "Yeah I'm talkin' 'bout you." I rubbed the dog's ears.

"I don't see why I need a gun. You don't use a gun."

"Yeah but I'm good. And I've gotten shot, a lot. I don't really like them and I've got bladebeam and dust. That helps along with a bigass shield. You don't have any of that. You're not slick enough to get away with it. You can't fly. You'll use a goddamn gun. And you know what?"

"What's that?"

"You'll probably like it. You'll probably have so much fun shooting stuff later that you won't want to stop. Almost every other hunter besides me has something which is also a gun. You'll find something you really like and, within a few days after you've tried out the armory, you'll want it combined with your sword."

"Yeah we'll see about that."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Okay I admit it."

"Yeah?"

"I really like guns."

"Huh," I said non-committal.

"Wow," Rosé laughed. "You are such a fucking asshole. Good gods above. I can't even admit that you were right."

"I literally said nothing."

"Yeah but it was in the way you said it."

"Okay. Okay."

"Can't you just be humble about this?"

"So which one was your favorite?" I changed the subject.

"Gods where do I begin? They were all so much fun. I think I liked the rifles but there were so many. And I don't even know anything about firearms. How can I even describe what I liked about each one?"

"I don't know. If it was a sword you could talk about the weight and balance and the way it tapers to a point. With guns it's just like 'they sure shot good.'"

"It's about more than that." She brushed me aside and flicked back her hair. We walked down a Vale street by night. It was lit up by holographic street lights. She hadn't stopped shooting until they kicked us to close down.

"I wouldn't know. I just stab things. Which weight did you like the best. Let's narrow it down."

"I really liked the assault rifles and submachine guns. The high impact sniper rifles were nice but I can't imagine swinging that around. I like swords too. It needs to be both."

"Are you sure? Now's the time to commit to a change if you're going to."

"I like swords. The anti-material rifles are out. The pistols were nice but I want something to really hold on to."

"There were some big pistols."

"I know. I know. I liked the assault rifles though. Can we commission one that turns into a blade? Like it unfolds and scissors into like a double edged sword. That would be so bad ass."

She was swearing more. I think that was my fault. I was a bad influence on her. In probably a lot of ways.

She seemed excited and I had the money. Sooner would be better if she really had made up her mind. She did try dozens of guns out to see which ones she liked today.

"We'll sleep on it and come back tomorrow. We'll try them out again. We have time. Then we'll find an engineer and get your weapon done."

"But that will take so long," she whined a little and I just looked at her judgementaly.

"I'm not buying you something we're not absolutely sure will work best for you. You're going to spend a lot of time at that gun range. Even after you have your new weapon. I can't train you how to shoot. I don't know how. You'll have to practice a lot if you want to be competitive. Your sword play is fine but no matter what we do your gun play will be weak before the tournament."

"Do you think it will be a problem? It seems like an obvious weak point."

"You'll have dust which you've gotten good enough at to probably manage it under pressure. Everything is harder in a real fight. Literally everything. But you're good with your sword. I suppose we'll find out whether it's enough in the moment. You sure you want to register?"

"You trying to talk me out of it?" She fired back. She had some spice to her tonight.

"Not really. It can probably only be good for you. You lose, you learn. You win, you have learned. That sort of thing. Now what about your parents?"

"What about _your_ parents?" She shot back.

"Discussion of my family is off the table. I'm on bad terms with every single member of my family. You are not."

"You don't know that. My parents and I have had rows."

"It can't be anything like the fights I have with my parents. It's really bad. Trust me on this one," I pleaded a little.

I kicked a stone down the sidewalk and watched it bounce elliptically. It was getting fairly late and we pretty much had the streets to ourselves. There was the occasional passerby or odd couple out for their evening stroll but aside from that the streets were empty and devoid of cars.

It was almost nine o'clock. Your average Joe was getting ready for bed for a long day ahead. Our schedule was a great deal more free. The only thing ahead of us was a long day at a shooting range and then I suppose I'd have to find an engineer. If Ruby were here she could design it in a heartbeat. But I didn't have her here. I found myself longing for her company. She was not just my girlfriend. She was my best living friend and my very first one at that. It was hard not to ascribe importance to that.

She knew all about guns as well. She'd be able to help and train Rosé where I just could not. I found myself lacking in a lot of ways and unable to relate to Rosé due to my upbringing and short life. I didn't know what it was like to be as young as she was. I didn't know what it was like to have parents. I had my fake memories but they were exactly that. They weren't real.

"So you like the weight of submachine guns and assault rifles. What caliber do you want? Which is more important to you? Having a high rate of fire or more stopping power?" I asked Rosé.

She walked and thought for a long moment. "Well I want to go as high caliber as I can if that makes sense. And I suppose I want each shot to matter more so I suppose I prefer stopping power over a rapid rate of fire."

"Then you want a decently sized assault rifle. Let's see what we can do. Like I said we'll come back tomorrow and see if you change your mind but it looks like we're closing in on what you want. And it should be doable. An assault rifle sword combination is far from impossible or outlandish. Sort of the opposite. At least as far as huntsmen weapons go. You can really go nuts with that. You can have an underbelly shotgun or grenade launcher."

"I don't think that those are for me…"

"I'm just saying you can go pretty wild with the customization of it. Make it really suit your needs."

"Well I'd like the option to rotate through different models of fire. Automatic, three round burst, and semiautomatic. That sort of thing."

"Sounds like a good idea. Let your tool do the work for you. That's all I'm getting at."

"Gosh I'm just so excited. I'm going to have an actual huntress weapon. Thank you so much. Not just for this but for everything. You know… I… I just really appreciate it. None of this would have been possible without your help."

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing," she stated firmly. "It means so much to me. It isn't nothing," she repeated.

"I only meant that you are welcome," I raised my hands in surrender.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Neo and I went out by night. There was a club with a reputation in Vale. They said that Junior knew everything that happened here in the city and it was time for me to pay the seedy place a visit.

The club was nice. Lots of glass in pillars and on the dance floor. High windows on each side with harsh white lights and cool greys to go along with it. It was nicer than the Den had been. The Den had been seedy but this club was high brow. There were guards all over with hidden weapons and red glasses. Security was good in this place.

The Hei's ran this town with Malachite support these days. That meant Xiong was the man to talk to.

I walked up to the bar. The man behind the counter looked me up and down and took in the sight of Neo in her usual non-disguised form.

"What can I get you?"

"Three shots of vodka and your sugariest girliest drink for my friend here. She has a sweet tooth. I also need to talk to Junior. Is he here?"

The man in glasses and hat started pouring and mixing drinks. "Junior is not seeing anyone today. You can make an appointment if you like but I have no idea when he can fit you in."

"He's going to want to see me. I can offer him a great deal. Tell him who I'm with - that Neapolitan is with me. He'll want to take the time just to make time. Thank you," I finished with that because the man slid my drinks to me and Neo. I slammed back two of the shots immediately but the third I held onto in a free hand to savor.

Neo began to suck down her own fizzy drink. It had two scoops of vanilla icecream in it and the liquid was bright red.

"I'll pass along your message. You'll still have to wait a while even if he makes an exception. Neapolitan is well respected around here. Who should I say is here to see him with her?"

"It's Strife. Cloud Strife. And thank you very much. I'm more than happy to wait. I am interrupting his schedule out of nowhere. I'm happy to make an appointment if you can put me in contact with a secretary or assistant."

The man checked his watch and eyed up and down the bar to see if anyone needed waiting on. Then he turned and left. He walked out from behind the bar, around a corner, up some stairs, then finally out of sight through a door.

I slammed back my last shot and had a look around. I watched people move their bodies out on the glass dance floor. A girl in a tight blue skirt was swaying her hips and grinding away at a young man's pelvis. An older gentleman who didn't quite have the moves was just standing in the center and waving his arms around with his feet planted still. One girl was holding the corners of a long pink dress and swaying her body as she firmly fisted the flowing, floaty gown aloft. Her head bobbed in time with the music with her eyes closed. She was thoroughly enjoying herself and knew what to do with her hands so as to not look silly but that was easy in a big dress like that.

"Junior will see you now."

I turned with my head spinning a little from the three shots.

The man had returned and was swaying on his feet impatiently. He had work to get back to. Every moment he wasn't working he was falling behind in a bar like this. He probably got two breaks on an eight hour shift. I might have just stolen one of them.

"Neo, come along. Yeah, you can bring your smoothy. Is it any good?"

She nodded sucking down the red liquid through a straw. Then she took the provided silvery spoon and swallowed a bite of icecream she scooped from the glass. Icecream for the icecream girl.

I followed the man the way he left. We went back into some offices which had the same style of flowing glass and white lights. The lighting was so harsh in this place. No wonder all the workers and guards wore sunglasses. This glare was terrible.

We came across an office with closed doors. The man leading me stopped and knocked three times hard.

"Come," a voice beckoned from inside.

The man opened the door for me and Neo to reveal a large red and brown desk with a giant of a man behind it. He had about a half dozen inches on me. And I was plenty tall. He was even more broad at the shoulders than I was as well. Even sitting down I could tell that much about him. He was big. His name was ironic, got it.

"You're Cloud Strife? You're Neapolitan's new handler?" He asked in a baritone.

"That's me. And she's my friend if you so please."

"You planning on taking over Roman's old place in the hierarchy?"

"That got him killed. So no. I came to trade favors with you. I want information and if you want some people dead or something stolen I'm your man. You need someone tortured I can do that too."

"I see. What information do you want from me."

"You ever hear about a man named Hazel Rainart? No? That's fine. But if you do I want his location so I can kill him. In exchange for that I'm at your service."

"It seems favorable to me. Assuming you can do what you say you can. I have little reason to doubt your prowess with Neapolitan behind you. She wouldn't follow someone who wasn't clever or strong or both. Why do you ask for so little?"

"It's a good policy."

"You want me in your debt."

"It would be better if we were friends. Then such silly things as debt could be forgotten. I can be very good for any kind of business you're running. And if you think of something else I can do for you instead of murder or torture I can do that as well. Think it over. There's no rush. Let me give you my number and I'll be on my way."

"That's it?"

"Yeah. That's it. That's all I want. I can be very profitable to you and I don't have many limits. Take my number. Give Aurum in Atlas a message about me if you don't believe me. And you can hold onto that favor as long as you like and you can call it in whenever. I just want Hazel Rainart. Sound fair?"

"It's more than fair. I shall consider it closely."

"Good talk then. Have a good evening and thanks for your time."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	125. My Return III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

My return to Vale was more quiet than I imagined it would be for some reason. I thought it would be as explosive as when I arrived in Atlas and I was mistaken. My trip around Mistral was violent as well. This was peaceful. And didn't these people deserve some measure of peace after black out day? Vale had been the hardest place hit by Mother when Cinder made her move. People had been gunned down in the streets by Atlas robots. She probably meant to destroy the kingdom. Or that would have been a bonus. It could have happened too. The Grimm feeding on wave after wave negativity as they threw themselves at the walls. The kingdom could very well have gone down in flames. It happened before, it could happen again.

There was no Tyrian or Cinder for me to hunt. There was only Rosé's training. Trying to prepare her for a tournament where people would be shooting at her was hard when neither Neo nor myself used a gun. But I managed to put ranged pressure on her with my blade-beams when we sparred. I still totally dumpstered her. It would be healthy for her to fight opponents she could actually beat. That would be positive. It would be a sign to her of how far she had really come. It was hard for her to measure herself relative to me. I was a bit of a giant. Even though I was declining I was powerful even for a huntsman. I was just going to be slumping from this point on until I finally bit it.

Hazel Rainart had never showed up in Atlas. There was little reason to think he or my step-father would come to Vale but I still had to put my feelers out for them. Junior never gave me a call back. I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad sign. He could well be onboard with me. He could want me to go fuck myself. I wasn't sure. That was the thing about silence.

Still, I had dipped my feet in the waters of the criminal underground. I didn't really want to be a criminal again but I was keeping my options open. It would only be a crime if I got caught. So, when you do have to do something illegal, don't get caught, Cloud. There. Problem solved. Another crisis averted. Except not really. Cops weren't stupid and evidence always gets left behind. My weapon was distinctive. That was a problem with hunters and trying to kill anonymously. We left our calling card on the body with the tools we used. Pretty obvious point of fact.

Maybe while I was ordering Rosé's rifle sword hybrid I should pick up another blade of my own to do my killing with. Nothing would ever replace Crocea Mors but maybe a little something extra to do my illegal work with. It was worth a thought.

We found an engineer. First name: Prince, last name: Melnikov was the engineer and he'd been making huntsman weapons for thirty years. He and Rosé spent several long hours together while she described the features she wanted her weapon to have. She described the way she wanted it to unfold and expand like a pair of scissors from an assault rifle into a double edged hand a half sword with a keen Titania edge. It had to work with standard dust round magazines and it had to be sturdy on top of all the other design characteristics that needed to be upheld. It couldn't snap on her in a real fight against the Grimm. It couldn't bend so that it would no longer flow and unfold into a sword and back again.

There was a great deal to have in mind with something like this. That's why it was some people's whole jobs because hunters had their lives on the line. They needed their weapons to work one hundred percent of the time.

Rosé's blade was relatively thin and narrow. It was straight with double edged and tapering to a drop point. The blade would fold up like a pocket knife and the handle would slide forward and the entire inside of the weapon would switch places with the outside and it would become a rifle that was well suited to mid ranges.

This weapon would do. At least until her semblance revealed itself and then that might prompt a change. Weapons really are an extension of a hunter. They are a part of our bodies and minds. Ruby could probably kiss me for thinking that but it was true. Crocea Mors felt like a part of my soul. Using another weapon felt wrong somehow. It was like I was betraying myself in some strange way. I wouldn't be me without my weapon.

I wanted Rosé to feel that way around Falchion II. She stuck with the name and she was keeping her old blade as a momento. I couldn't find a fault in any of that. They were hers to do as she pleased with. If, at the end of the day, she told me she wanted to keep using just a plain straight forward sword I would have found it hard to argue with her about it. Luckily that wasn't the case. Luckily she decided to use a weapon that would have some range to it. I got away with my set up but I had almost died a lot and I had won the superpower lottery. Not everyone could fly, have super speed, and super strength, and have some weird power that forced the enemy to approach you or you would become even more dangerous.

I could camp behind my shield and charge my semblance and then go kill pretty much anybody on the planet. There might be a few outliers who could survive Omni-slash but they weren't going to be common and they were going to be hurt by it. I could floor just about anybody with a charge of my semblance. Sure I was now getting weaker with each passing day but for now nearly nobody could stop me. That wasn't necessarily a good thing. If I turned I could really do a lot of damage before they found the right people who could stop me. That wasn't the most reassuring thought when I considered that my mind was under attack.

Rosé didn't have any of that going for her. So I was glad she picked up a gun and I was glad she liked it. Having a gun could save her life. So we went to the shooting range with it for six hours a day and we trained swordplay for another six and then the last four hours were free. I worked her to the bone though. She said she wanted to win and that would only happen if she mastered her new weapon. You don't change horses in the middle of a stream. She needed to know how to use her new tools. She needed to know when it was safe to swap weapon forms and attack with her gun and when she needed to switch to the sword. It had to be both.

So the days were pretty busy for us all. But every night I was still plagued by visions of torment. They had become a pleasure but they were still there. My mother remained beneath the surface like some horrible beast of the deep. She was still out there plotting against me with my sisters. I really wasn't sure where she would strike next. Maybe she would attack Atlas again. There were two relics there all things considered, along with three maidens. That was the gooiest honeypot on the planet in all likelihood. The only other missing piece was summer. Gods only knew who and where she was. That meant the relic in Vacuo was safe. Unless Mother had summer in which case it was already hers. Which could very well be. Mother was not the type to be idle.

That had me on my toes and unable to relax in the slightest. I could literally feel her scheming. I just couldn't get a bead on her actual thoughts. It should be possible for me to do. There was a connection between our minds. That's how I was able to feel my sisters. There was something to be said for time and distance in all of this but I should be able to read her mind the same way she was able to get into my head. It was risky and dangerous and I should really just be staying focused on building my wall of maddening terror which she had inspired. I should focus on my defenses. But there was also something to be said for going on the offensive. Put Mother in a corner for once and see how she responds. Attack her mind rather than sit back and take her beating - that sort of thing.

I could take a mental beating now. Her psychic pressure had turned me to diamond. But I should be able to do more and turn it around on her and my sisters. Reverse the connection, flow upstream, drink of those waters. Was it possible? It seemed like I was knocking on the door of trouble. It would probably answer swiftly. If I wanted Ruby's dream to come true the best thing I could do is banish if not vanquish my Mother. But was the best way to do that really to remain constantly on the back foot? Should I really remain patient and bide my time, waiting for the right opportunity to destroy her? Perhaps I should be thinking about ways to create an opportunity. Read my Mother's plans and stop them before they came to fruition rather than constantly be reacting.

I didn't know. I couldn't know. But sitting back and being patient was working to a degree. I was better now than I had been in Atlas. Even with all of Ruby's and Weiss's help I was doing better on my own than with them. Not through any fault of theirs but through the revelations I had on the road.

This wasn't about them. This was about me and my problems. And they were problems I had to deal with on my own by their very nature. Ruby and Weiss just couldn't help me. I hated putting them through that. All they got to do was watch me suffer. They had been nearly completely helpless to stop it. I know it had frustrated them even if they wouldn't admit it. It had been part of why I had left. I attacked them for fucks sake. I hated that they saw me that way.

I never wanted to be like that again. Another puppet. But how? My semblance did something. It let me resist and hold my breath until I passed out. That advantage came from me. And thank the gods it did when it did or I might have killed them. If she had puppetted me with my semblance active I would have ripped them apart. My own loved ones. Again.

I had to do things right the first try from here on. I had to be careful no matter which path I chose. I really just had to do the best I could. That's what it came down to. And if it wasn't enough then a lot of people could die. As in literally everybody.

But no pressure.

So I would do what I could. The things I was doing with Rosé had to count for something. It was some good I was truly doing that nobody could take away from me. I was adding something good to the world. In Atlas I took away evil with Tyrian and Cinder. Doing good and removing evil aren't quite the same thing though I was also destroying evil with Raven Branwen. That wasn't quite opposing my mother but it was still evil I had taken. It counted. It could never undo the damage I had caused but it counted for something.

What I was doing with Rosé was more than that. It was like spending time with Ruby and Weiss. It was pure. Mother couldn't ruin that for me. She could find new minions as I'm sure she had in the past and would once again but she couldn't take this away from me.

It might not be enough but it was me at my best. It was me pushing my limits.

I wrote a letter to Weiss and Ruby. I told them about the upcoming tournament and my meeting with Headmistress Goodwitch. I told them about the possibility of reading my Mother's mind. Their opinion mattered more to me than anyone else's in this regard because it was by my reckoning that they had the most to lose if it turned sour on me.

Sure.

Everyone everywhere could die if I fucked up.

But I didn't really care about everyone everywhere to be completely honest. There were just a handful of people I did care about. It was them who I didn't want to die. Your average person I couldn't really care less about.

Yeah I saved lives where I could but that was because I was bored and I could do it pretty easily. I know not everyone feels that way. Ruby doesn't. She might die for some civilian one day and that scared the fuck out of me. She might throw away the lives of everyone she could have saved if she just ran away not to mention her own precious life which mattered more to me than some random civilian. I wrote to her as much. It probably wouldn't get through to her. She was stubborn. Maybe she wouldn't get it but Weiss could help explain it to her. I was sure Weiss had thought about that.

I bet it scared her too.

I'm sure I worried the crap out of both of them. Not much I could do about it, though. I was literally dying and I had a monster goddess in my brain. Thems was the facts. I wrote to them that Vale was peaceful and rebuilding well. I wrote that I hoped I'd get to see them soon through the new CCT. It would be nice. I gave them an address that they could use to write back to me. I didn't want these letters to stop and it would be nice to hear back from them. This one way communication sucked in comparison to what could be. I wanted that fixed and I wanted to hear their honest opinions about going on the offensive against Mother.

"Another letter?" Rosé asked me.

"Yet another letter," I agreed.

"Who are you always writing to?"

"I have some classmates from Beacon who survived and I want them to hear from me. It's hard to say what we were or are. It's complicated."

"Were you close?"

"The closest. Well, of the survivors anyways. A lot of my relationships to the deceased are also complicated and deeply confusing."

"So what? You spend most of your time confused?"

"Pretty much. Yeah." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "I'm going to go send this thing. Back in a bit." I walked out of my room and down to the hotel office with the letter. The attendant at the front desk directed me to where I could send it and I did.

As soon as the letter was in the box out I felt a flood of relief. Soon I would actually be able to hear back from them. It had been months.

I missed them. There wasn't much I could do about that but I found my thoughts on them all the time. Or at least during my free time. I promised myself 'soon.' Soon I would have what I was looking for. I could be with them. I could hear back from them. And gods willing I could have that family Ruby wanted and I found my thoughts drawn to as though magnetic. I focused on it hard. I got tunnel vision. One day I would have that.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	126. It's a Long Story I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Rosé was nervous. She had the pretournament jitters. It was natural. I bet Pyrrha had it when she competed for the first time too. It was an edge that other participants would have over Rosé. It was a slight mental edge and it wasn't to be underestimated. The mental edge was every bit as important as the physical one. If you don't believe you can win then you've lost.

Plus her family was going to be there and she hadn't seen them in forever and she wanted to put on a show. She was putting a lot of pressure on herself. I could see it in the way she was tapping her foot while we waited in line to enter the stadium. It was early morning and they hadn't opened it yet. There was nothing to do but wait and it was killing her.

"Relax. Hey Rosé. Seriously. You need to relax."

"So much could go wrong today. How can I relax?"

"Figure it out. Something has to work for you. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I could make a fool out of myself in front of the entire kingdom. For one."

"You won't though. Especially if you just breathe. Everyone is entering the same tournament you are. There's nothing to fear."

"But other people have been in tournaments before. I haven't."

"There is no substitute for experience. But you can't give your opponent that leverage over you. You can be competitive but only if you really focus. Only top sixteen is televised and on the big stage. You won't make it that far if you can't calm down. It's double elimination so you have a second try. Just try and breath. Will finding your parents help?"

"N-no I-I-I don't want to see them. I-I want them to see me on the big stage."

"Well then breathe. Come on. Deep breaths."

The line in front of us started to move as they began to let people into the multifloored stadium. There was the big stage on the top level but on lower levels there were smaller arenas and locker rooms. Rosé was given a tag to pin to her clothes and I got a tag that marked me as a coach. Then it was more waiting while we took the time for the tournament to actually start. People were warming up and stretching all around us. Rosé noticed this and began to warm herself up as well. It gave her something to do which was nice. It gave her the ability to finally get her mind off of her parents. She was horrifically anxious all the way up until they called her name for her first match.

"Rosé Gainsborough to the ring eight. Gainsborough to ring eight."

I gave a little start. I had thought...

She stood up and pulled her weapon from over her side. She exhaled hard and made to step out onto the platform with a shield around it so that the fighters could use guns and not, you know, shoot the spectators.

I grabbed her by the wrist gently but firmly. She looked up into my eyes with her mouth slightly agape. She looked afraid of what I might say.

"Rosé, you have got this. You're more than Beacon ready. Find their weaknesses before they find yours."

Then I let her go.

She stared a moment longer before she walked out into the ring. She gave her weapon a few experimental swings. She went through the first five angles of attack that I showed her, perhaps subconsciously.

I took my seat with the other spectators. There were only a handful. Later, as the participants dwindled, the areas around the rings would get more packed but for now it was still early and there were a lot of matches ahead of Rosé. There were four hundred some odd contestants in total.

The boy in the ring with Rosé whose name I hadn't caught spun a glaive around his shoulders and leveled it at Rosé. Rosé took him in. Blue hair and red eyes, he stood out in a crowd.

"Three… two… one… begin!"

The boy spun and lowered his weapon, holding it against his shoulder revealing that it was indeed also a gun. It was a very long rifle with a blade at the end. He shot at Rosé. She dived forward at him firing back as she rolled. Then she came up and twisted her weapon back into a sword and she jabbed at him now that she closed the gap. Like a regular person confronted with something like that he just stepped back. He brought the blade of his weapon down on her but she stepped inside with the swing. She slashed him across the chest and she paused. She seemed to be surprised. She was acting like she hadn't expected to get this far but now she was inside his guard with a shorter weapon and every advantage and she just straight panicked herself out of dominating her opponent.

"No!" I shouted from the sidelines. I wasn't sure if she could hear me through the shield. "Keep fighting!"

He hit her in the side of the head with the butt of his weapon. She stumbled back and he jabbed at her with the blade of the glaive. She deflected and then tried to get inside and reclaim her opportunity but he was hip to her game and forced her back. Unable to get in, Rosé switched her weapon form. She started shooting him and he backed up even more and shot at her.

At the closest range Rosé had the advantage. Outside of that, he did. Then she took advantage again at the mid range and at the longest distance his weapon would let him prevail.

She should be familiar with it and play around his glaive. She should play around at that range where he won with his blade, swapping weapons to poke at him and diving in and out. That was how she could win. Keep him at a disadvantage in that place where she sandwiched him and bounce back and forth between her forms. He would win if he could hold her at bay with the tip of his glaive and force her to use her machine gun and make her uncomfortable that way.

I hadn't taught her that explicitly. I realized that as I watched the fight unfold. I hadn't explicitly explained how to hold your opponent at the range you wanted them to be.

That was an obvious gap in my teaching. What other enormous gaps had I left unfilled? That scared me. That could cost her the tournament. But, worse than that, it could get her killed down the line because I hadn't taught her what she needed to know.

What else was like that? I wracked my brain as hard and frantically as I could. I'll be honest. I had a panic attack in my seat. She was going to die because I hadn't taught her what she needed, _needed_, to know. This tournament be damned.

I wasn't watching the fight then. I didn't notice anything until she came up to me with a big smile on her face. It quickly schooled into a frown when she looked at me. I missed her match.

"You won," I said stupidly.

"I did. What's up with you? Is it about my last na-"

"I didn't teach you about effective ranges. Your only sparring partners have both used swords. I didn't teach you how to pin your enemy in and always make sure that they are in your range without you ever being in theirs. It's important. Are you listening?" She had a shocked look on her face. "Are you listening to me? Rosé?"

"I… yes I'm listening."

I breathed a sigh of relief but only a little. "Look you might run into an enemy that outranges you like you just did. It's absolutely critical that you avoid those distances where you lose. Hold your enemy within effective firing range or at the tip of your sword. Preferably both if possible."

"What do I do if I run into someone effective at the same ranges as me?"

"You gotta outplay them. It's a straight up fight. Plain and simple. Be better than they are. I never taught you that."

"You're teaching me it now. What's the big deal?"

"If I forget to teach you something you need to know you could die."

"You're putting way too much pressure on yourself…"

I bit my cheek and looked away. This was as serious as a heart attack. Good enough was just not good enough. It just wasn't.

"You did well. That's one round done. The match will be reported and you'll move forward in the bracket. You did… you did well." If she lost, that was on me. If she won, that was on her. Same for if she died and if she lived.

"He was much slower than you and Neo. It surprised me. When I first got in on him I was too shocked. I almost dropped Falchion at how easy it was."

"Your opponents won't be anything like fighting Neo or I. In many ways. Your opponents today won't be holding back. Better drink some water and try to relax again. It's going to be a long time before your next match."

"Really? My adrenaline is really going now. It'll be hard to keep up this energy. Keep it up and put it back down over and over again. I'll be exhausted."

"I think that's tournament life for you. It's about staying power and keeping your mental edge. It's easy to lose and hard to find again. Real fights are much the same way only without the pauses. They can go on and on. A seeming eternity from the inside. You don't want your parents to watch these matches? How come?"

"Um I just don't want them to see me lose. At least not until I get up on the big stage. If I make it that far, I mean. Then I feel like I'll have made it far enough that they'll have to see how good I am. You know what I mean?"

"Not really but it's your party."

"I only mean that they will have to admit I can be a huntress. That's all."

"Okay sure. If that's how you want it. And about your last name…"

"Um. Yeah?"

"I know I've heard it before. I just can't place where… help me out. I thought you were a Delatour."

"My uncle and mother are Delatours. I'm a Gainsborough. And uh well the thing about that is… I mean to say… I can't say for sure I know where you've heard it before. Yeah. I don't know how to help you."

"I can't believe I didn't know your name. Serious oversight on my part."

"D-don't sweat it."

"Good enough for me."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Rosé's next match was an entire hour later. She had nothing to do but stretch and stretch again and stretch some more. She drank some water too. Sure sports drinks could work but I had found nothing that could beat plain old water. The stuff was magic.

She fought next against a blonde haired girl with amber eyes and middling height. Her weapon of choice were sickles, two of them, one for each hand. Rosé never fought an opponent using two weapons at once before. The closest thing she had to it was me with my shield. That was not an offensive tool.

Rosé was immediately put on the back foot under the other girl's onslaught. She thrusted and stabbed and cut at Rosé and Rosé struggled to block. Rosé stepped to the side rather than straight back as I had taught her. Rosé sidestepped and made some space and swapped her weapon to the rifle form. She took shots at the girl but there was a small flash of light and a shimmering golden barrier appeared before the girl and deflected the bullets right back at Rosé. The rounds struck Rosé. The girl's semblance was some kind of reflector. That could spell trouble.

Rosé would have to fight up close against that wicked offense the blonde possessed. She seemed to realize it as well and she flicked her blade back out again. The amber eyes girl's semblance forced Rosé to approach. I looked up at the screen with the two girls' aura displayed. The blonde's was green. Rosé's aura was bordering on yellow. She had been struck several times by those wicked sharp blades. She stepped in close and cut horizontally. Her blade was longer than the curved sickles. But not by much. Rosé had to shake off the mental damage of the other girl having a semblance that countered part of her game plan.

That could be hard to do. The mental battle was crucial, however. Rosé needed to keep her head in the game and play to her strengths and avoid the other girl's advantages. It could be hard to do considering Rosé was forced to approach and meet that dual wielding aggression. The blonde struck low then high then low in an alternating spinning attacks that Rosé struggled to deflect the blows of. Then she countered with a thrust to make use of her reach. The blonde countered by hooking Rosé's weapon to the side with one blade and bringing the opposite one down on her body.

Rosé took the hit then got out of there. She backed up but her opponent just waited. She knew that she would win by aura if the match went to time. The ball was stuck in Rosé's court. If she didn't figure something out then she would lose but she couldn't keep taking chip damage when she approached because she would lose that way too. In this regard the amber eyes girl had two different win conditions that she was playing for. And she wasn't tunnel visioning on either one. She was playing both. Rosé was in trouble. She was getting out game planned.

Rosé approached with a diagonal sweep. She pulled back quickly before she could get hooked again and came at the girl in an angle three like she had practiced a thousand times. Her opponent blocked both quickly and counter attacked with the curved weapon in her right hand. Rose stepped in and shoulder checked the girl out of nowhere.

I cheered.

The girl stumbled back and tried to regain some balance but Rosé had no intention of playing neutral with the girl ever again. She had a leg up and she was going to make the amber eyed girl pay right here and right now.

She kicked the blonde in the stomach then she slashed diagonally three quick times and she staggered the fourth devastating slash so that the tip of her sword barely cut the stumbling girl's aura. Then she followed the whole dancing blade with a thrusting angle five that caught her opponent in the chest and knocked her aura into the red and put her ass in the dirt.

Rosé was declared the winner and she shook hands with her opponent in a sportsmanlike fashion. I didn't realize I was on my feet but I was. I had been standing up and cheering for her.

She walked over to me with some pep in her step. She had a sly smile and I applauded.

"Way to stay focused on your win condition, it's important to keep something like that in mind and you played around her semblance well."

"It's all thanks to your training."

"No. It really isn't. You did brilliantly. You kept her right at the tip of your sword and once you had advantage you kept her in a state of disadvantage the rest of the match. Truly well done."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	127. It's a Long Story II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Rosé had her next match thirty minutes after her second. She fought the boy with an electric sword and dust spells used in their raw form. She adroitly played around the lightning and fire spells the boy favored. He would cast fireballs which would linger and prevent her from approaching while he would set up an enormous thunderbolt with yellow dust. When she finally got in on his zoning, she was met with a sword imbued with yet more electric dust in a wavy quadruple recurved edged blade.

Rosé got caught in a fireball which burned her and held her in place and then he struck her with a thunderbolt and the combination brought her aura from bright green all the way to orange.

She avoided the fireballs after that at all costs and tried to break his zone with her machine gun fire. He tried to hit her with a thunderbolt raw. She rolled under that and clashed with his blade. She was his superior with sword play and she never let him escape from her tools from then on. She clashed with the lightning blade and pressed him back. Then she swung the sword horizontally from the right, diagonally down from the left, horizontal from the right again and finished off with a series of fast thrusts at the very tip of her sword. She caught him with each and he was forced to roll in on her to recover away from the edge of the stage where he would lose by ring out.

She smashed him as he did with an arcing overhand attack with both hands. It slammed him against the shield and knocked his aura into the red at the same time.

Rosé sighed. Breaking the boy's zone had been exhausting to even watch. He did a considerable amount of damage to her aura. She better rest up and start recuperating. She shook hands with the boy and walked over to me. I was waiting and politely applauding her victory. She came up to me and hugged me. I patted her on the back and she let go. Her face was pink from the fight but she had an enormous grin.

"Whew that's three down. How many rounds are left?"

"Ten if you stay in winners." I answered. Her face fell. "These tournaments are brutal. You only have five more rounds to top sixteen and you can still lose once. If you're going to lose, then lose by ring out. Not aura exhaustion. You'll have a tough time fighting after that."

"I'm going to be so tired by the time I get to the big stage."

"Yeah. It's a marathon not a sprint. Go get some water in you and recover some aura. You got hit pretty hard out there."

She left to get a drink and I waited around the same arena. Some next batch of kids in the loser's bracket would be coming through and I could watch that. It was something at least.

A kid came up beside me. He had silvery blue hair and bright blue eyes. He had a spear on his back. It was long with a black handle and tapering point. He had a heart shaped face with a narrow chin.

"Oh excuse me. Am I in your way? Are you competing?" I asked the young man.

"No. I'm too old. I came to talk to you. To find you. You're Rosé's trainer. Her coach? I saw you talking to her."

"You know Rosé?" I asked him.

"I'm prince Chrome. I'm her brother. You've got some nerve putting your nose in my family affairs."

"Prince Chrome?" Realization struck me. "No way. That would make Rosé…" Some pieces clicked together in my head.

"Princess Rosé? You didn't know?"

"I'm not well learned. She kept her last name from me and I didn't even recognize it."

"Well regardless I'm here to talk to you. Where do you get off dragging my sister into hunting? Huh?"

He got right up in my face. I was taller than him by a couple inches but he didn't seem intimidated by me.

"Is that really what you think happened? Fuck off."

He hit me across the jaw with a sucker punch and he was strong enough that I flew a couple of feet into the ring.

"You ought to be more respectful to your superiors."

I floated back to a standing position and cracked my neck. I pulled my long, long blade from my back and he whipped his spear from over his shoulder.

He came at me into the ring with a lunging thrust. I activated my semblance with a thought, flew behind him, and Cross-Slashed him in the side. He slammed hard into the shield wall inside the ring. I nearly shattered it with his body. We were starting to gather a crowd of onlookers. I flung him nearly twenty meters with that Cross-Slash. To his credit he actually started to get back up. He did it slowly. To my credit I flew until I was standing right over him in a blur then I kicked him in the skull with the tip of my boot. He collapsed from the bent over position he had been staggering up to. He was breathing hard and his purple aura crackled over his body.

"You'll regret that," he panted.

"Come now, good prince, that was just a love tap," I shot back. I stood over him charging my semblance in a rigid pose.

"Cloud what are you doing?" Rosé came bursting through the crowd and ran up behind me.

"This jackass sucker punched me. He's lucky I didn't kill him."

"As if," Chrome snarled.

"Try me again," I challenged.

"Both of you stop it! Chrome, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he grunted. He shoved his way to his feet.

"Is it true? Did you attack Cloud?"

"We had some fighting words first..."

"Chrome… why…?"

"I never wanted this for you. Hunting. It's dangerous. He dragged you into this."

"I always wanted to be a huntress. Chrome go find some place to recover. I'll talk to you later."

He shot me one last glare but he took his spear and left. He shoved his way through the crowd.

"So…" I enunciated. "Princess Rosé Gainsborough..."

She froze. Then she slowly looked up at me.

"How long have you known?"

"Literally a minute ago was when I found out. So, you were all too happy to keep me in the dark. You kept your last name from me. You let me think it was Delatour," I spoke slowly with a smile on my face.

"Okay. I can see that you're mad…"

"I'm not mad. Well. I'm not angry at least. You must have had a good reason. I'd be happy to hear it."

"See I was going to tell you… but then I was worried you would change around me… so yeah. I lied to you and kept you in the dark. I was born princess of Vale."

"Huh… come on. Let's get out of the ring and we can talk about the future."

She swallowed and nodded.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We found a locker room that was quiet and mostly empty. She sat down like I was going to start yelling at her.

"Well for starters it couldn't have come at a better time," I began.

"W-why's that?"

"You don't need me anymore. You're Beacon material baby."

"Oh… right…well the thing about that is… that is to say..."

"You didn't think I'd go back to school, did you? Once school starts up I have shit I need to head out and do."

"The laboratory stuff…"

"Yeah. That stuff. I swear I'm not angry. It isn't like I didn't keep shit from you as well. But you can see the position I'm in here. Right?"

"I…"

"Go on."

"I don't know what you mean. It's a long story..."

"Princess," I admonished with a smile.

"Don't." She half ordered, half begged. "Don't call me that. Not you."

"Rosé, then?"

"I don't see why we can't move right past it. Nothing has to change."

"If you really thought that, then you wouldn't have kept it from me."

She was quiet.

"Well? Would you? Do you really think that?"

"I…"

There came a buzz through the speaker system. "Rosé Gainsborough to ring thirteen. Gainsborough to thirteen."

"Well. Duty calls. Go get 'em tiger." I nodded my head towards the door. Rosé breathed a heavy sigh. But she did stand up and start to make her way to the designated ring with some trepidation. She looked back once. Then she turned and marched out of the locker room.

She would do fine at Beacon. She didn't need some crusty huntsman like me dogging her.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

She lost the match. It was brutal and she was in her own head the entire time. She committed half-heartedly. Her heart wasn't in the game and she was assaulted by a boy wielding a grenade launcher flail combination. She wasn't focused and she got out played. That's all there was to it. She was in the loser's bracket now.

I was standing there when it went down. She was crushed until her aura was in the red and she lost the match. She refused to respect the boy's range and power. She got punished over and over for it by enormous crushing blows of the flail and she got shot by grenades directly to her center mass at a distance. She never found her rhythm and was castigated repeatedly. It hurt me to watch it all happen.

She didn't come running up to me like after her other matches. She sort of sagged over and she wouldn't look at me.

"Rosé, you have got to get your head in the game or you won't make it to top sixteen. You'll get double eliminated. Your heart just wasn't in it."

"Why do you care?"

"Don't give me that. We can still be friends. But I wasn't going to be your teacher forever. You knew that. So chin up. You can still win this thing with a loser's bracket run all the way to the top. But only if you focus up. Especially now that you're in loser's with low aura. You need to not really get hit again if you're going to pull this off. It's still doable for you. You can still show your parents that you're up for this. But you gotta get your head in the game and not worry about me. I'm still right here, aren't I? I haven't left just because now I know some more about you. We're still friends. We can talk more later but for now you have got to focus. The way you're fighting now you're going to lose again. And that's not right because you're good at this. Do you understand me?"

"I… yes. We'll talk later? You'll stay with me?"

"Yeah. Of course I will. I haven't left you yet."

She hugged me hard. I thought she was going to start crying. This really had been stressing her out and I never knew. I didn't know what she was thinking but I wasn't going to take off on her or start treating her differently. It must have been a major stressor hiding her name and identity like that.

But I was right. She could do this but not if she started to doubt herself and lost her mental edge. It was so crucial in a tournament like this. Especially in loser's bracket. It would be so easy to crumble.

I squeezed her back benevolently but with firm meaning.

"I'm sorry about my brother. Thank you for not hurting him. Only his pride got injured. I saw that much."

"Eh. It was nothing. He wasn't ever really a threat to me. Come on. It's round five next. You're nearly halfway to top sixteen."

"How many rounds do I have?"

"Thirteen if you make it to grand finals. Five to top sixteen."

"That's a lot…if I would have won it would have just been two rounds to top sixteen."

"You could get a bye round. That would be lucky so I wouldn't count on it. Better rest up and get ready. It's do or die time."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Her next matches went by in a blur. She was focused and sharp and she kept her opponents off balance. Rosé strung along this one girl until she won by time out just by chipping away at her with Falchion's assault rifle mode.

When she had to get in she was fast. She never did get a bye but she never got hit hard enough to dispatch her aura to the red again but it stayed in perilous orange all the way up until the tournament's top sixteen. There were eight rounds for her left if she made it all the way to grands.

"You did it," I congratulated her. "You could quit now if you wanted. No one would blame you. You've had a crazy loser's run."

"Stop now?" She wondered. She sounded like she couldn't believe it one way or another. "I'm so close to actually winning this thing. I can't just quit. If I lose I lose but I won't just quit."

Her hair was drenched with sweat. She had been fighting on and off all day. She'd had nine matches so far. That was a lot of fighting to do. The times where I had to fight it hadn't been close to this much. Each match had been a mental battle as well as a physical one. Your brain gets tired the same as your body. It had been an uphill struggle. No one could find fault in how far she had come. She was guaranteed a trophy and she had proved her metal.

"And another thing… don't you think you've made your parents wait long enough to see you? Same with your brother. Even though he seems like an asshole."

"I… I suppose I could see them. You could meet them. We do have our lunch break…"

"Go see your family Rosé. They'll be proud of how far you've come. Or they should be at least. I really can't speak for them but you know what I'm getting at."

"I'll see them," she decided. Then she took a long drink of water and chugged it. She panted out afterward. She slicked back her now dark red hair. It was stained by her sweat as though she had been in the shower. She was drenched and so I tossed her a white towel. She rubbed her back and ran it through her hair fiercely. It didn't do a whole lot but she was a touch more dry. "Let's go," she decided.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Rosé shot a message through her scroll. She set up a meeting place between her and her parents and I followed her through the back rooms of the stadium.

When Rosé saw her mother she ran over to her. She was a short woman with silvery pink hair. Just the same as her daughter. The queen of Vale had that same heart shaped face as her daughter and son.

The king of Vale had dark blue hair and strong blue eyes. He was handsome I supposed. Not hunter handsome but he was good looking.

Rosé's mother went to hug her daughter.

"Mom, you don't want to hug me. I'm all sweaty."

"I don't care. It's been so long."

There was a third person with the king and queen of Vale. The future headmistress of Beacon academy. I tried to make myself invisible in the corner of the room but Glynda Goodwitch sought me out.

"So, this is the student you mentioned. You didn't tell me she was the crown princess." The professor had a sly smirk on her face.

"Yeah well… I didn't know. Not until today. She lied to me about her last name. And even if she hadn't I doubt I would have recognized it. You know what kind of student I was."

"Hardworking?" She asked.

"Typically falling short," I corrected. I was smiling softly. "She did well. I'm proud of her for making it this far."

"You must have taught her well."

"I didn't think I would be preparing her for tournaments."

"Glynda? Who is this young man?" The king of Vale paced over to the two us. They wrapped up a quick family conversation on their own while the headmistress and I chatted.

"Oh, Dad, Mom, this is my teacher. Cloud Strife," Rosé introduced hurriedly.

"It's a pleasure," I said, shaking the king of Vale's hand followed by the queen.

"So you took my daughter under your wing. She must have been a handful," the king said.

"Dad!"

"I am Tycho Gainsborough and this is my wife Lydia," the king went on with a small smile.

"She was an angel to train, she was like a sponge. And I was happy to do it. It's one thing to remove evil from the world; it's quite something else to add something good."

"Like when you killed Raven Branwen?" The headmistress asked me. She had this pleased look on her face that I couldn't truly place."

"Yeah. I suppose."

"It's you we have to thank for that?" Lydia asked me.

"I killed her. Killing murderers is a part of the job."

"But Raven Branwen was more than some mere bandit."

"She was a handful. That's true."

"You must be very talented," Tycho murmured.

"I get by." I was uncomfortable with all this attention put on me. Today was about Rosé.

"He's incredible. His semblance is wicked and comes with a grab bag of powers."

I shook my head at Rosé minutely. Now was not the time.

"Chrome got to see him up close and in action already. Cloud floored him," Rosé went on heedless of me.

"We had a disagreement…" I confessed. "It was regarding Rosé's training. The prince blames me. He thinks I'm putting her life in danger."

"And aren't you?" The king challenged me with his eyes flashing.

"Probably. Yeah. I've done the best I can to keep her alive but hunting is dangerous."

"Cloud!" Rosé protested. "It's my decision."

"I could have left you with your family in Winhill. I didn't. That counts."

"I always wanted to be a huntress and to go to Beacon. I have you to thank for that."

"Maybe…" I hedged. I was uncomfortable being put on the spot like this. "Don't thank me yet."

"Cloud, I have a proposition," the headmistress started speaking with this same sly smile as if she just struck silver. "Beacon needs a new combat instructor. I won't have the time to run the school and teach my old class. You have proved that you're capable of teaching. You've shown that you are, in fact, dangerous. You're responsible and you know what's on the line. I think you make for an excellent candidate."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	128. It's a Long Story III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The rest of the tournament was on the big stage and would be televised across Vale. Rosé wasn't slated to fight for another hour or two. It was back to waiting once more. We got lunch. Something light and easy to digest but rich in calories. A sandwich and a protein shake.

"So…" Rosé began as she was eating.

"So?" I wondered.

"About the headmistress's offer… will you at least think about it?"

I sighed. I was thinking about it. It was… it was complicated. I had my duty to hunt down my father and oppose my Mother. I couldn't do that sitting at Beacon. But it was the exact sort of good I wanted to be doing. And I really shouldn't be around children. As dangerous as I was it could be a real problem. It felt like asking for trouble. But I had managed well with Rosé. It was difficult and I was wrestling with it. Professor Goodwitch knew about my condition. You would think that would preclude me from any such offer. But in it's own way it was tempting. Of everyone in Vale she was most likely the one to be able to stop me. Being under her watchful eye might be a good thing. But could I really go back? And as a teacher? I wasn't sure. I managed with Rosé but that was just one student. It was not multiple classes.

"I'll think about it," I promised.

"You'd be an excellent teacher. You would do an amazing job."

I exhaled hard. "This isn't about that… I… I have to go to Vacuo. It's where Merlot will set up shop next. It's right out of his play book. Someone has to stop him."

"Why does it have to be you? You can take a break. Professor Strife. It has a good ring to it."

"I'm… I'm thinking about it. Alright. You see me? I'm thinking about it. Finish up. We want to watch your competition."

We were invited to the top box with the king and queen. The headmistress was there as well. I… I had some serious pondering to do.

I took my seat to watch the first match of top sixteen.

Prince Chrome came in and took a long look at me. I stared him right back down. He took his own seat on the other side of Rosé from me. The headmistress sat down beside me on my right with a flourish.

"We should be happy to hear your thoughts on the matches Mr. Strife, headmistress," the king spoke solidly. His voice was firm. Something like an order was in it but not quite.

"I'm sure the commentators will do a fine job," I readily dismissed.

"All the same. They won't be hunters. We would like you to share your observations. If you should make any."

"Of course," Goodwitch agreed.

"Very well," I decided with a half-hearted shrug.

The match opened up with a flare of the stadium plasmatron. The two competitors' faces appeared on the holographic screen. There was a girl with long green hair and startling green eyes. She was a faunus with a set of pure white wings. Her competition was a blonde haired boy with bright brown eyes.

_"Alright, Blue," _a commentators voice began._ "We've got the beginning match of top sixteen right here. And we've got a contestant that needs no introduction."_

_"You said it. She's the top seed at this tournament for sure and with good reason. Pine is a top contestant, Crimson. Let's get right down into the match."_

The girl walked out onto the stadium floor confidently and in a flowing white dress with a red sash. She held a round blue shield on her right arm and a long cold silver and gold staff on her left.

Her opponent stepped out onto the floor to match her. He had two recurved single edged swords with barrels protruding from the tips.

The hologram showed their respective auras. The girl was mostly untouched from the skirmishes she had been through during the day. She was at eighty-seven percent. Well in the deep green. Her opponent was at sixty-six bordering on yellow. Sure, everyone had different amounts of aura. But based on that the girl was starting in the lead.

_"Pine is coming in with a comfortable lead and she's got a decent aura pool to start with," _a commentator, Blue began.

"She has so much aura left," Rosé observed.

It was true. Rosé would be lucky if she was pushing fifty after lunch and a rest.

There came a countdown on the holographic board. The crowd cheered along with the countdown.

On go, the green haired girl took off the ground with her wings spread wide. She dashed forward, leading with her small round shield. The boy started taking pot shots down the barrels of his weapons. Then he front-flipped forward and met her. He slashed at her and she blocked him with her shield. Then she met his other blade with one end of her staff and smacked him across the face with the other end of the Titania rod.

_"Ouch," _Crimson announced. _"She's coming in strong."_

She slammed him in the face with her shield and bashed him with her staff. She grabbed him by the collar and started kneeing him before she bent over backwards and threw him over her body to the ground.

He landed in a roll to his credit and he had to because the girl cast an explosive spell of fire dust right where he would have gotten up. The massive fireball held itself in place away from where he rolled.

She caught his roll anyways with her flight. She smashed him with her shield and then she twirled her staff and jumped at the same time. She caught him in some sort of multi hit. Then she juggled him again with another jumping spin of her staff.

_"Here comes those combos. She's so consistent with them," _Blue went on. _"That's a lot of percent right there."_

Then she finished with an alarmingly fast jumping kick that caught him before he could touch the ground again.

"Wow…" I heard myself murmur very softly.

"She's good," the headmistress said quietly.

"She's really good," I agreed. "Look at how she maintains her advantage state. Are you watching Rosé?"

She just nodded with her eyes forward.

The boy tried to escape the girl but she held her staff out and fired three beams of light from the tip. It caught him in the chest and the balls of light torched him. The girl gestured with her staff again and cast another fireball and forced him to dodge.

He tried to regain some balance by shooting at her with his guns but the girl blocked with her shield and hit him with several more rays of light.

"She's beating him at every range," Rosé observed.

"We call that a hard counter; sometimes you run into things you just can't beat," I nearly whispered. I usually did that to people; I just forced them to approach and ripped them to pieces. It was interesting to watch for once. Ruby used to do it to me. Pyrrha did it to team CRDL.

He tried to shoot her but she just absolutely vanished and reappeared right in his face in an instant. She crossed thirty meters in less than a heartbeat. She whacked him one last time across the head with her staff.

_"Ooh the warp to finish things off. She didn't need to do him like that. But she did it anyways," _Crimson spoke into his microphone.

_"It was definitely to send a message."_

He collapsed. She'd gone through his aura and a medical team was rushing the field. The girl flicked her hair back and sashayed off the stadium floor in her dress.

_"Well I hope he's alright. Who knows, Cotton might do well in loser's."_

"She's going to win this thing," I said. Then I looked over at Rosé. "Her or you, of course. She's the player to beat, however, don't get in your head and be intimidated."

"I don't know how I'm going to beat her," Rosé mumbled. "Look! She's walking off with more aura than she started with. He never touched her." It was true. Her indicator showed eighty-eight percent.

"Did you see her semblance?" I muttered to headmistress Goodwitch with an awed tone.

"How could I miss that? She's a teleporter. A fast one, too. Very little start up or lag on the other end. She also used dust very well. Burn and a sprinkle of light."

"Do you think she has a place in your school?" I asked the headmistress.

I caught the girl's name on holographic screen, Pine Telimess.

"Oh, absolutely," Goodwitch answered me.

"Be very wary of her semblance if you have to fight her. It will have rules. Every semblance does. Every power has limits," I informed Rosé. "And she needs to be eliminated twice. She's still in winner's."

Rosé had eight long matches ahead of her to make it to grand finals.

"So what do I do if I have to fight her? It seems like she would beat me at every single distance."

"You gotta out play her at one of them or you've already lost. Get close with your sword and cut her up. It's your best chance, I think. I'm not sure. She proved that she can box. He tried to camp her out and she teleported on top of him. Don't try that. She can close the gap on you instantly. You won't be able to chip her down much with your rifle. Maybe just the occasional shot. But she's got ranged options dependent on dust. There's no reason she can't beat you at a distance."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Rosé got ready for her next match. She swung her sword and dropped to one knee with her rifle held to her shoulder. As her coach I joined her in the locker room next to the big stage.

"Be calm. Think things through. Remember your strengths," I coached gently. "You have a lot of matches between you and grand finals. This will be a hell of a run if you make it."

"You think that other girl is going to win."

"Only if you don't. You can do this and you can beat her. It is doable for you. Don't let her get into your head already."

"Her semblance is awesome and she knows how to use dust very well."

"Don't get psyched out. Someone else might eliminate her."

"She's gotta go down twice."

"You're not even fighting her next. Keep your focus up. One match at a time. If you can't concentrate on your next opponent, you won't have to worry about fighting her."

Rosé breathed in deeply and exhaled hard.

"You need to nearly not get touched for the rest of the tournament. You can't take a slugfest of a match. Really focus on playing safe and defensive. You've got this."

A man in marked t-shirt approached us in the locker room. He had a microphone around his head and his ear. "We're ready for her."

"Time to face the music," I murmured. I turned to leave and I heard Rosé release a shuddering breath. Then she marched out into the stadium.

I made my way to the sidelines to watch and wait for her rather than go back up to the box.

Her opponent was a slim girl all in grey with blonde hair and bright red eyes. Her face was shaped like an oval under a scarf. She looked lean and limber. She had a svelte body plan. In both hands were tiny knives held between her fingers.

I looked up at the holographic screen. Rosé was at forty-eight percent and this other girl was at thirty-nine. They were both fairly low and if they wanted to move forward neither could take a lot of damage. Least they be screwed in the next round let alone the ones after that.

On go. Rosé took off towards the other girl. She was immediately hit by a throwing knife from the scarf wearing girl. It stopped her in her tracks. The small knife buffeted her but it didn't do a lot of damage. The other girl had a lot of knives to throw. She sprinted low to the ground right at Rosé. She jumped with a high kick right after she staggered Rosé with another knife. The blow knocked Rosé back and the girl dashed forward and sliced across her with the tiny knives in her hands.

For four attacks they didn't do a lot of Rosé's percent but the girl was fast and able to chain multiple attacks together. When the girl lunged at her again Rosé flung herself upward and sliced at the same time. The move caught the slender girl across the whole of her body. In that one blow Rosé did as much percent as the other girl did in four. The thin girl was a glass canon with high combo potential.

If Rosé realized this then she could win by spacing her out with her sword. She seemed to know it as well. She jumped and swung in the air and slashed the girl again before landing and slicing her with four quick cuts. Rosé had her own combo capabilities.

Rather than pursue, Rosé swapped her weapon forms and shot the girl several times.

The girl jumped and threw a knife and tried to dash in again and hit Rosé with her fists but Rosé swapped her weapon's form and slashed her once more. Rosé shouted as she jumped and cut downwards in an overhand attack. It cut the girl across the body and knocked her aura into the red.

The match was called. The slender girl regathered her knives and shook hands with Rosé. Rosé came off the pitch and back over to where I waited on the sidelines.

"Another one of those and you'll be in top eight," I told her grinning. She sighed exasperatedly and with some frustration. She still had a lot of matches ahead of her. As in four. That was if she made it into grands. She could very easily get knocked out by those coming from the winner's bracket into loser's.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We watched Pine Telimess demolish a brawler of a man. She summoned a pillar of light that shattered his aura using a pinch of white dust at the right time. The pillar of light was enormous.

I never used white dust though it was every bit as energetic as the kinds I usually used. It was just much more expensive than it was worth. Raven Branwen had attacked me with a blade imbued with the stuff and nearly knocked me the fuck out with it. It had been her trump card. Weiss used pinches of it to summon balls of light and fling them away as spells. I wasn't unfamiliar with it. I just never used it myself. Though a part of me did wonder what would happen to me if I ate a little bit of it. A crystal of pure white dust would be expensive and training with it would be difficult and life threatening. That's why I hadn't done it. But the results could very well be spectacular.

The results with burn and shock were incredible for me. White dust was even more powerful. And Pine was showing off some of the things you could do with it.

She would be a menace once she graduated whatever academy she went to or however she finished her training. She could be very very good. I wasn't sure if she could one day beat me but I could see it happening. Especially as I declined in might.

Rosé's next match was against the boy Pine had knocked into the loser's bracket. The boy with the curved gun swords, one in each hand. Rosé took some damage but she out paced him and trapped him well. She emerged victorious with only twelve percent of her aura shaved off. She was hovering at around thirty percent. Too much more and she would be eliminated. She needed to rest and recuperate between rounds as much as she could or she would lose fairly easily to whoever would be in grand finals winner's side. Probably it would be Pine. She looked fairly unstoppable.

Rosé had another match against another boy who had been knocked out of winner's by somebody other than Pine. The boy was good, with a long spear that doubled as a rifle, but he was unprepared for the intensity of Rosé's straight forward game plan. You were going to get stabbed. You were going to get shot. It really was just a question of how long you could avoid it. Rosé was fairly linear in her approach. She was just so effective that it didn't really matter. She was shaving off the competition and those knocked out of winner's bracket barely had time to recover enough aura to be in the orange. If they couldn't recover fast enough they would be double eliminated. It was time to dig deep and push through.

The next match I watched with great interest because Pine was up against a purple haired boy with blue eyes who had made it this far with just a short sword like Rosé's training wheels blade. It might grant some insight into how Rosé would fair against Pine if both of them made it that far.

On go, he caught her with a jab and side-flipped and cut across her body with terrific speed and power. He jumped and spun in the air brining his blade around in a downwards arc. He jumped and combined her all the way across the arena in a devastating series of blows that cost her half her remaining aura. But Pine got a grip on things once she teleported away. Then she whittled down the boy with the terrific offense using her projectiles and never let him get in on her again. If she pulled out a similar strategy against Rosé then Rosé could be in trouble. She would be forced to use her marksmanship which was lacking compared to her swordsmanship.

Rosé got a bye in the last round. The person she would have been fighting never recovered enough of their aura to fight again. That left just two people in the tournament. Pine and Rosé. Just as I predicted.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I don't know how I'm going to beat her! I don't know how to do it! I don't think I can do it!"

"Start by calming down. You can't beat her by panicking."

"Cut me a deal."

"What?" I wondered.

"A deal. A trade."

"Okay…" I trailed with trepidation.

"If I beat her… if I win this thing… you have to come teach at Beacon."

"Rosé… there's more going on in my life than you know. I'm not sure that's a good idea for me."

"You would be so good though."

"Maybe… or I couldn't handle it at all. I don't want to make you any promises. I can't take you up on your deal. But you can win this thing. Deal or no deal."

"Just tell me why," she demanded.

"Rosé… it's very personal."

"Give me a good reason."

"Because I hurt people. Is that a good enough reason? I've killed people, I've liked it, I shouldn't be around kids."

"What about me?"

"I probably shouldn't be around you either. I'm playing a dangerous game with that. It's like toying around with fire. I'm a killer. I'm a bad guy. I shouldn't be around children. I'm a hazard. What is Goodwitch thinking? She knows. I told her how big of a threat I could be. If I snapped I could cause a lot of damage. Again. If I snapped again. And I could. I'm a big problem with no good answers and she wants me around kids. What's going through her head."

"She sees how competent you are? She sees what a good job you've done with me?"

"That's how it starts. That's what Oscar said before I snapped the first time."

"Who's Oscar?"

"Nevermind that. That's not the point. I'm a problem. I'm a big problem."

"But you're still thinking about it."

"I am. Yes."

"Why?"

"It's the sort of good I want to do in this world before I… before I die. And I will die. I will die soon."

"How do you know?"

"Just… I know. I can't explain how but I'll probably die soon. It's a serious problem. I can't really get into it right now. I'm sorry.."

Rosé looked up at me mutely. I sighed. Her big ol' eyes were gazing at me and pleading like a puppy dog.

"Look. You need to focus on the tournament. You've come so far. You've had a crazy loser's bracket run. You can still win this thing. But you definitely can't beat her if your head's not in the game. And we do have a lot to talk about. We can later. We will have enough time for that, at least."

"Do you promise?"

"Yeah I promise. Now get out there and beat her. I'll be right here on the sidelines cheering you on."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	129. Gainsborough II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Rosé PoV)

A lot was going on in my life at the moment. As was the usual of late, it mostly had to do with my mentor. It had to do with Cloud. He knew I was the crown princess now. So there was that. Maybe I shouldn't have kept that from him. He probably deserved to know. But when I saw my chance to pass myself off as just another noble girl I took it. That was probably wrong of me.

It had been an emotionally taxing day from start to where I was now. I still wasn't finished with it. I still had my greatest challenge ahead of me: Pine Telimess. I'd have to beat her twice because she was in winner's side. I wasn't sure I could even beat her once.

And on top of all of that came the knowledge that my teacher and I would probably be parting ways. He didn't trust himself at Beacon for one reason or another. He was afraid of himself.

And I liked him, damn it. I liked who he was. I liked how handsome he looked when he ran a hand through his hair. I liked how much of a badass he looked with his weapon in his hand and what a weapon it was. I liked how slick his silhouette was when he moved, even just a little. He was dashing. He was what a huntsman should be. He was a man, a good man. I liked the way he cooked. I liked how he worried after me and encouraged me. There was a lot of stuff to like about him.

He just didn't really see it. I was pretty sure that on top of being scared of himself that he hated himself too. The way he talked about the mistakes he made sounded resentful.

So I might have bias. Just a little. In that I wanted him to teach at Beacon and stay with me. And it was kinda selfish and I was a little cowardly too. I didn't have the guts to tell him how I felt about him.

I sometimes wished that I did. Then at least he would know even if he would probably laugh in my face. He thought I was just a kid. He didn't see me as sexy, or whatever. He didn't see me the way that I saw him. That raked at me. But I could grow and change. I could blossom into a beautiful huntress who he would have to take seriously. I would like it if he would look at me like a _man_ looks at a _woman. _As a woman. Not just some girl. Not that I was just some girl to him but I wanted to be more than what I was.

He made my heart race when he hugged me. He smelled nice. Like spice and ozone from his power. Smell was good. Smell was important. Nobody wants a smelly mate.

And the way he made my aura buzz was jaw dropping. It felt so good when he touched me. It made my sixth sense hum. He was so dangerous. He was a bad man who did good. He was a lot to take in.

So yeah I wanted to be around him more like at Beacon. I didn't want what we had to stop. So what if I had the hots for my teacher. There was something attractive about a knowledgeable man. So sue me. So set me on fire for it.

He burned me. He made me burn like a girl does for a man.

And now I might have to leave him behind forever.

I didn't want that. I would rather go with him than go to Beacon but that was never the plan. I couldn't impress that upon him. He never agreed to take me with him wherever he may go. He promised to get me ready for Beacon and he had. Now that things were drawing to a close I wished for more courage.

So there was a lot going on even besides fighting my way through this loser's bracket. That was exhausting. I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained as I walked out onto the pitch. Pine met me there. She looked pretty even though she too was sweaty. The green hair and the angel wings really brought the look together. She walked with a womanly away for a girl that I was pretty sure I would fail to mimic if I tried.

"Best of luck, princess," she said and she extended her shield hand. She was left handed but she extended her right. She was probably used to doing so.

I took it and shook back. "You know me?"

"Of course. Don't think it will keep you safe from me. I won't take it easy on you and lose." She let out a wonderful bell like ringing laugh at me.

"We'll see about that," I managed to put enough heat in my words to shut down that laugh that made me feel a touch jealous. But that was just vanity. I wanted my laugh to sound that good and to be as pretty as the other girl. Not to mention I was pretty sure she was a better fighter than me. It made my stomach turn with envy. She made me nervous.

I walked back to my side of the pitch and drew Falchion from my side. I was as ready as I was going to be. I waited for the countdown and the signal to start.

I was so very wary and weary. I had done a lot of fighting today and the other girl had her semblance unleashed and it was a decently powerful one at that.

"Three...two...one…go!"

Pine flew at me on her wide white wings with enormous sleek feathers. Her hair waved behind her as she came at me leading with her shield. Her solid metal quarter staff lingered behind her as she beat her wings.

I pulled my rifle on her and started shooting while walking slowly forward. I emptied the clip and swiftly reloaded like I had practiced over the last month. I hit her with several burps of the weapon. Some bullets bounced off her shield. Other rounds impacted the girl's golden aura. Then she vanished. She reappeared some ten meters away, instantly crossing twenty. Then she vanished again and she was right on top of me. I quickly shifted my weapon's form to deal with the approach.

Something stood out to me. Why teleport twice? Why not just teleport once the thirty meters between us? Why'd she have to do it twice?

I didn't have time to think about it. She was swinging her staff at my head. I lifted my sword and blocked with a metallic _clang _where the Titania edge of my blade met the Titania rod my opponent wielded.

She didn't rattle my body the way my master did whenever we fought but she was strong. It was a manageable kind of strong, however. It was tolerable for all that I was exhausted. My muscles ached and burned and we had only just begun. A glance at the holographic screen above us revealed that my aura was at fifty-five percent and that Phone's was just a hair over sixty. I'd done some chip damage with my gun but not much.

She brought her shield up to whack me in the body with it and I stepped around her as I had been taught. Backing straight up would be disadvantageous. I needed to sidestep around. I swung diagonally down at her and she deflected off her staff. I slid my weapon down the rod at her fingers but she pulled back. She drew away then jumped at me backwards and slammed her round blue shield into my chest. She pursued me now that I was in disadvantage like Cloud mentioned she would. She came at me with a bright flashing kick. I caught her leg with my left hand and swept her to the left. Then I kicked her in her one standing leg in the back of the knee now that she was turned away from me.

It dropped her to the ground and I swung horizontally back and forth three quick times across her head as harshly as I could. I demolished twenty percent of her aura in that moment. She teleported away from where she knelt. Then when she reappeared she vanished again even further and started casting spells.

My mentor said to be on the lookout for rules. Rules which would govern how the semblance worked. She must have not been able to go that far for one reason or another. She must have a maximum distance that she could teleport and it must be relatively small. It should be a trade off for how fast she could do it. It was nearly instant in terms of time between teleports and how long it took her to initiate the warp.

Pine started an explosive flame right on top of me that I was forced to roll away from. She fired four motes of light at me from the end of her staff. One of them caught me and made me stumble. Then she teleported right up to me and hit me in the stomach with her staff. It bent me over. And she made to bring the tip of her weapon down on the back of my head but I jumped back.

I double jabbed at her in two upwards swings of my sword that caught her in the center of mass and maybe did eight percent of her aura. My teacher had been right. I could do this. I could win.

I jumped at her and she was forced to be on the defensive the entire time I was falling. I was threatening an attack without truly committing. My mentor did that to me sometimes. He would just use his movement to intimidate me and put me in a corner. 'Empty movement' was what he called it. This was an empty hop. I landed and just when she least expected it I reached out and grabbed her. I pulled her into my knee and then I lifted her and slammed her into the ground. When she bounced I jumped and swung my weapon up into her. Then I landed and swung upwards again. Keeping the juggle going, I jumped and made to swing my weapon down on where she was falling but she had a get out of jail free card in that she was able to warp away and land rather than get caught up in my juggles.

I caught up to her when she had to take a moment to collect herself on landing. I swung four diagonal fast cuts. I knocked her aura into the red and slammed her on her back to the ground.

I panted hard. I looked up at the holographic display above me and listened to the roaring crowd. I had reset the bracket.

I shook hands with the girl and made my way to the sidelines. My mentor was waiting for me with a pleased half grin. I looked away from his pride. It was too much.

"She gets a chance to recover. Then just do what you just did again and the tournament is yours," he smirked down at me.

I couldn't bear to look at him. I just stood and panted hard. He handed me a bottle of water and I drank it down quickly. I beat her. I beat her once and all I needed to do was do it again. I already proved that I could. It was on her to adapt to me now. Pine was in loser's bracket now too.

"I can't believe I pulled that off," I managed to say to my coach.

"Believe it baby," he shot back. He still had that cheeky smile across his face. It was unbelievable how handsome he was. It wasn't fair. And did he really have no idea what he did to me? He made my knees weak and made me want to rub the top of my thighs together.

"Her teleportation makes her blind for a second and she can't breath while she's focusing. She has a limited distance that she can go," I managed to find something to say back to him. It was a struggle sometimes in his presence.

"You found her weaknesses. Well done."

"How long does she get?" I wondered.

"Thirty minutes. And if she can't recover enough aura by then you win by default."

That was a while on one hand. It was a long time to wait for me but it wasn't that long for her to try and recover. I looked across the pitch at where Pine was talking to her own coach quickly and emotively. They were trying to pick apart my weaknesses right now. Her coach was sharing some observation with her and she was nodding along. I wished that I could hear what they were talking about specifically. The best way to take me down but what was that exactly.

I waited and waited and an official made their way over to Pine. He checked her aura. It was orange on the jumbotron. She could fight again. I was going to have to beat her once more. I drank some more water and an official came up to me to ask if I was ready and I told him that I was.

I marched away from my mentor and back out into the pitch. Pine was waiting for me and we shook hands once more.

"You had a good run, princess. But it's over now."

"Eat dirt again," I shot back. Then I turned away to walk to my side.

"Three… two… one… go!"

I took off at her in a sprint. I beat her at close range before. That's how I would beat her again. She fired a bolt of light at me and I jumped over it and towards her. It was planned to be empty movement. I wasn't planning on hitting her in the arc of this jump. But it actually turns out that I could have because she stepped in and before I could react she thrust her staff up and sent a column of light issuing from the ground at her feet. The pillar of light caught me and flung me backwards and upwards.

She teleported beneath me and swung her staff up at me and kept me in her combo.

I managed to land but immediately had to dodge a ball of fire that she sent my way. I crushed a dust crystal and sent a bolt of lightning at her. She blocked it with her little shield but it shoved her back.

She had made some adjustments between rounds. She noticed my feint and saw through it and she hit me really hard with that beam of light. I couldn't risk a look at the screen but I probably didn't have much aura left before I was in the red.

I swapped my weapon's form and opened fire with five round brusts of tight shooting. She weaved through it and teleported in my face. Before I could swap my weapon back she was all over me. Had it been a trick to make me swap forms and catch me out? She rushed me down while my weapon was in the rifle form before I could switch. It had been a trap. I'd been duped.

She hit me hard with the side of her shield like a punch then she whipped the end of her staff around and smacked me in the stomach. She reversed her staff and spun it upwards right into my forehead and knocked me to the ground brutally. I went through half a backflip from the force of the blow.

A whistle blew. I looked up and my opponent popped off in celebration. She swung around on her staff with one foot kicked up like a ballerina. She let out that ringing laugh. I must have fallen into the red. I had just lost. In a heartbeat like that I had lost. I was eliminated from the tournament. I just lay on the ground and breathed hard for a minute. I pushed myself to my feet and I shook Pine's hand. She was a gracious winner. But I could tell she was a little smug. No one as competitive as she was wouldn't be and she had proved how competitive she was with her prefight banter.

I slugged my way over to where my mentor waited. I wasn't sure what I was expecting but it wasn't that same pleased grin. I flushed. He was still proud of me. I walked up to him and he patted me on the back twice. It set my barely active aura aflame.

I smiled a little.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	130. Living Legacy I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"I need your answer, Mr. Strife."

I sighed and looked the headmistress in the eye.

"Why did you do it? You knew that I wasn't Beacon material back then. Now you think I'm Professor material? Even with everything I told you about me?"

I stood in her office at the top of Beacon tower. The dragon of stone loomed outside the window. All cool grey and frozen in place by Ruby's power.

"Ozpin believed that you were a plant of some sort."

"I knew that. And I was. I told you that Salem is in my mind. And you just went along with it?"

"I did. I had faith in Ozpin. I still do. If he truly believed that you were a threat he would have done something."

"I've killed people," I protested. "I killed Ren and Nora. I'm a monster."

"Perhaps you were, but no longer. I don't believe that about you. I've seen the work you did with Rosé first hand. You did your best to prepare her for our world. You did well. Now I'm asking you to keep going. Think of the lives you could save, of our students and beyond."

I bit the side of my thumb so hard I thought it might bleed. I ran a hand through my hair.

I sighed. I knew my answer.

"Yeah. I'll do it. I'll do the job. But I want something that I think you can give me. Not money."

"I should think not but you will be paid well. What else is it that you want?"

"A pardon."

"I wasn't aware you had committed any crime."

"Not for me. For my friend. Neapolitan. Roman Torchwick's old enforcer."

"I see…"

"She helped me kill Raven Branwen and parts of her tribes. She can do some real good on our side of the law. She's powerful and talented. She has utility in spades. And I won't just abandon her. She needs someone to look after her and that's me."

"I'll talk to the king and queen of Vale for you. As well as the council and any judge who will listen. I shall endeavor my best."

"That's all I want."

"Term starts this month. You'll want to have moved in by then."

"I have a dog - a hunting dog that I'm training. Can that come too?"

"I should think so. It's a part of your gear. A hunting dog is most useful. It would be good for our students to learn to work with such an animal. I can help you learn to run our equipment and manage the sparring sessions. I'll also need your help on initiation day. Just running and managing things in line with your new duties. There will be some paperwork for you to sign. Aside from that I would like to welcome you aboard. Welcome back to Beacon."

She stood and held her hand out to me. I took it firmly.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"So you did it. You took the job?" Rosé asked me back in my hotel room.

"Shouldn't you be at your family manor or whatever? You have no reason to avoid your family and you'll be at Beacon soon."

"It's a castle. And why? Do you not want me around?" She gave me puppy dog eyes.

"We'll spend plenty of time together at Beacon," I dodged.

"So you did! You took the job!" She jumped up excitedly. "I mean - that's cool."

"Yeah, okay." I stared at her. "Alright. Did a letter come for me?"

"Yeah it did. From Atlas. I read the return address on the outside. I didn't go through it or anything. I wouldn't do that."

"I believe you. Cool your jets."

"It's over on the desk," she pointed over to the dark wood table top.

I paced over to the desk in the hotel room and opened the envelope.

_Dear Cloud,_

_First and foremost thank you for staying in contact with Ruby and I. It matters to us a great deal. We love you. _

_Second of all, do not try and further open the connection between Salem and your minds. We want to close that bridge down and not widen it by any means. We approve of a defensive strategy. Once again, do not attempt to read Salem's thoughts. We believe that is too dangerous and strongly beg of you to not try it. _

Alright. Fair enough. I figured they would say that. Even I had thought it was a risky operation.

_We are proud of the defensive barrier you claim to have erected. It must have been very difficult. The masochistic tendencies you mention worry us, however. As does the news that your stigma has begun to set in. We hope you start feeling better. _

_I am progressing well with my maiden training and I took up a job with the Atlas Academy since I am locked in here all the time under strict supervision. Especially since the attack your sisters attempted. The Atlas robots were hacked and General Ironwood doesn't know how. The drones were captured and turned on his men in a matter of moments. He has become increasingly paranoid but perhaps no more than is necessary. He doesn't know where the attack is coming from. He suspects that he is under what's called a man in the middle attack and he can't find the source by the very nature of the hack._

_Blake has taken on the powers of the fall maiden from Penny. Oscar split the power once more and we are training together to master our abilities with Penny. I'm not sure when the last time there were three maidens in once place together was. It's nice having someone else going through the same thing I am. We can struggle together. I hope you know I say that with irony regarding you. You don't have to be alone either. Especially if your mental defenses are developing. Keep us in mind and the fact that we miss you and want to see you again. We won't rush you but we do urge you. _

_Your letters are nice but they aren't as good as the real thing. _

_Yours sincerely, _

_Weiss and Ruby._

I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I was holding until the end of the letter. I squeezed the paper tight in my hands. I folded it back up and put it back in its envelope and amongst my things. I would cherish it always.

It was written mostly by Weiss that was obvious. But it came from both of them. The handwriting was elegant and curly. Weiss's penmanship was as crisp as she was. I thought I could see traces of Ruby's input in the letter as well. Little things. The line where she wrote they loved me.

I should write something back. And I would have another address soon at the academy.

"Pack your things. You're moving back in with your parents until school starts up," I informed Rosé.

"Can't I stay with you?"

"I'll be moving into the teacher's quarters at the school. So, no. It's not goodbye forever. Just for a couple of weeks. I'll be there for your initiation into Beacon."

"What is initiation?"

"I'm not sure I should tell you. I think that it's supposed to be a surprise."

"Oh come on."

"You'll do fine at it. Seriously, though. Pack your things. Unless you can give me a really good reason why you can't move back in with your family."

She couldn't and fell silent.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We took a cab to her family's castle in the heart of Vale. Rosé was a little frustrated with me the entire ride. I could tell. As far as I could see she didn't have beef with her family but she was an independent spirit. She would rather be with me or stay in the hotel but I wasn't going to pay for a hotel room just so she could dodge her family and feed into her rebellious spirit.

It was a large castle built like a fortress that we pulled up to in the cab. Rosé climbed out of the car with a weary sigh. She had her travel bag and Falchion with her and that was it. I stepped out of the cab onto the power washed pavement. It was red and lined with cobblestone up to an enormous set of double doors. There were guards with pikes and shields in uniform lining the castle. It was at least six stories tall.

Rosé marched up to the gate. I lingered by the cab.

"Well? Aren't you going to come with me?" She asked.

I heaved an exasperated sigh.

"Keep my fare going. I'll be back," I told the cab driver. He seemed content with that and pulled out his scroll. He was being paid to do nothing. Fine by him in all likelihood. I watched the meter tick over another Lien before I even got out of the car.

I slung my weapon across my back on its harness and let my half cape flutter in the breeze behind me. I followed Rosé up to the set of double doors. The armed pikemen on either side gave me a look but otherwise didn't move. I was in the company of the princess after all.

She opened the right double door and held it open for me and I followed her inside.

Right away there was a vaulting atrium with four enormous glass chandeliers hanging down and casting the room with light. The walls were lined with oil paintings and display cases and were painted a dark blue. The floor was cold grey and black marble tile in giant squares. It was polished until it shined.

She turned to a man holding a pike just inside the door.

"Will you find my parents and let them know that I have arrived to stay."

The man bowed to the princess and marched off into the castle. He went up a flight of red carpeted stairs and around the corner in search of the king and queen.

Rosé sighed and waited.

"Nice place. Very fancy. I'm worried I'll break something."

"You get used to it and it gets old after a fashion."

I stood quietly and waited. The guard came back with king and queen following behind him. He returned to his place by the door like a statue.

The king gave me a benevolent nod and watched the queen and Rosé with a large grin. He came up and took my hand in both of his in a greeting.

The queen embraced Rosé again in a very tight hug. "Just a squeeze," the queen muttered. "There we go. So you've come to stay until you go off to Beacon? How come?"

"Cloud is moving into the teacher's quarters at Beacon and I can't stay with him any longer. Plus… it's time to come home for a bit again. It has been a while since I left," Rosé answered.

The king grinned. "You are always welcome at home, Rosé. And you, Cloud, you took up the headmistress's offer? That surprises me. I thought you would decline."

"I decided to do the job. It's not much but I want to keep going with the same sort of style I have done with Rosé," I responded back. "It was at my insistence that Rosé is returning to you for a spell."

"I wanted to stay with Cloud but he made it clear that wasn't going to happen. He really put his foot down."

"Oh I see…" the Queen's eyes flashed a little. "Is that how it is, Rosé?"

"It's not like that."

"Isn't it obvious."

"No. Mom, enough!"

"Very well. I'll leave it alone. For now."

I had no idea what they were talking about. I exchanged a glance with the king who gave me a sly smile. I gave him nothing back and feigned apathy. It wasn't hard.

"Well, I'll leave you off. Until the twentieth, Rosé. I'll see you again then," I made for the door.

"Can't you stay for dinner?" The queen asked me.

"Not this time, no. I have some things to get back to. On another day."

"Do those things include Ms. Neapolitan? Aiding and abetting criminals is itself a crime," the king cut in. I gave the long red handle of my weapon a squeeze in its harness. Then I let it go. I turned back to see him still smiling. He had a knowing grin. "The headmistress brought it up to me. Stay for dinner. We have much to discuss."

"Dad! Don't entrap him."

"Very well…" I murmured. "I'll stay. Let me pay my cab fare."

"You can also give a servant your weapon. You do not need it with us I assure you."

"I'm uncomfortable without it."

"Come now, you need not be armed here."

I hesitated. I looked at Rosé. I cracked like an egg. "Very well..."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I handed my weapon over to a young man who struggled to even carry it. He had no aura and was as weak as a regular man. My weapon was a hundred twenty pounds of Titania. No one but a hunter could wield it. It was very heavy. He made off with it and I watched him go. I missed the weight of it with me and I turned back to see Rosé and the queen.

"Sorry, Cloud. My dad can be very insistent."

"It's no problem. I need to talk about Neo anyways."

I followed her and the queen through long well decorated corridors until I reached a tall dining hall with stained glass windows in blues, greens, yellows, and reds. The filtered light was colorful and pressed in from the evening sun all over the room.

"Please have a seat Cloud. We can chat for a bit."

I took a seat and Rosé sat next to me. The queen set down opposite her at the long dining table made of dark wood.

"So Cloud, tell me about yourself," the queen ordered refreshments and demanded of me politely to share.

Here we go…

"Where should I start?" I wondered.

"Well you became a huntsman. How and why did that happen? Where did you train?"

"Family pressure I suppose. I was always going to be a fighter. I went to Beacon until black out day; I wasn't very good back then. Next I trained in the wilderness of Anima on my way to Haven. That's where I really came into my power."

"And where were you born?"

"Just outside of Mistral but I spent my formative years here in Vale."

"It's quite the adventurous life you live."

"It's been eventful if nothing else."

"Did you attend school at Haven next?"

"No… I… I spent some time in Anima and then went to Solitas where I briefly served in the Atlas military. But only for a short time. Then I decided to come back to Vale. It was on my way that I met Rosé. And the rest is history."

"You said you came into your power on your way to Mistral, what is your power?"

"Oh!" Rosé perked up. "His power let's him-"

"-Rosé! Ixnay. Please allow me some secrets. I have a grab bag of abilities. I'm strong. I'm fast. I can fly. And there are a few other powers but they have a lot of rules to them. I hope you understand that a semblance is deeply personal." I directed the last bit at Rosé who wilted slightly under my gaze and winced back.

"Got it. Got it," she mumbled.

"Forgive my curiosity but you live an interesting life. One can't help but wonder about you. You've done a great deal. Were you there when Haven was attacked and Leonardo Lionheart was killed?"

"Yeah. I was there."

"And you also fought when Beacon fell and you served in the Atlas military?"

"I did that too."

"You just go from one thing to the next. Why, a recounting of your life is just a history of all major events of the decade."

"I never think about it much."

"And do you have some pretty girl in your life? Or perhaps you prefer men?"

My face heated up slightly.

"Mom!" Rosé cried in exasperation.

"It's complicated. I can say I like girls, however. That's easy enough."

"Ah here comes Tycho and Chrome now. And just in time for dinner."

I was served roast beef and potatoes with steamed vegetables on a large platter. Chrome sat next to his mother and the king sat on her other side at the head of the table.

"So, Cloud, how do you know Neapolitan?" The king asked me.

"Well she tried to kill me when I was in Mistral. But I kept knocking her down. Then she started following me. I have a habit of picking up strays. That's how I got my hunting dog."

"But she is a criminal," Chrome pointed out.

"So was I. In Atlas at least and a little in Mistral as well though I was never caught, charged, or tried. I killed a bunch of people and broke some others out of prison. Did some other stuff I'm not proud of. But it's been the straight and narrow for me since I arrived in Sanus again. Same for Neo. She deserves a second chance and I need to look out for her."

"Still, pardoning someone like her is a potential hazard. Can you really keep her out of trouble?" The king wondered.

"Yeah. I think so. She's a follower at heart so she listens to me. Plus her powers are incredibly useful."

"For committing crimes."

"That and other things."

"And what is your relationship with her?" The queen asked. "Are you perhaps involved?"

"Not with Neo. No."

"I shall grant you this pardon. But only this time. She had better be kept in line. You understand me?" The king spoke sternly.

"I do. And thank you, I'll be sure you won't regret it."

"You're not involved with this Neapolitan. But you are involved with someone," the queen pressed.

"Sort of. It's complicated. It's difficult to say what exactly my relationship status is at this point. Though I am sort of involved with someone. Excuse me but this is deeply personal."

"Of course. I understand. I shan't push you any further."

"Thank you."

"Of course you'll be teaching my son and daughter at school. I'm afraid you won't be rid of us easily."

"You and I have a score to settle, Professor," Chrome fired.

"You really don't want to fight me, kid. It would be enjoyable for neither of us."

"We'll just see about that. I think I'll have a great time."

"We can spar. I'll make myself available for private training to students by appointment but you probably won't like what follows."

I finished eating. I stood to leave and said my valedictions then I collected my gear and departed the castle without a backwards glance.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	131. Kisaragi I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Yuma PoV)

Today was the big day. I had applied to all the major combat schools but only one accepted my application: Beacon. And today it was time for initiation. I checked my shuriken and my shield dozens of times before I packed it in my case. I said goodbye to my father and I left for the big city on another continent.

It was the furthest I had ever been from home. I took a train into Mistral and an airship from there to Vale. I really hated flying. I got vertigo from it. I got airsick easily. But it was well worth it because today it was time to become a huntress for real.

Just please don't throw up. Not on your first day. Anything but that.

We set down at Beacon and the students poured out of the airship and began to make their way to the school. It was huge. An enormous tower and wide campus dominating a pillar of rock overlooking a lush green forest.

I breathed deeply. I grabbed my carrying case and began to follow the crowd. Here it was, my big day.

I bumped into someone with my shoulder.

"Oh sorry."

"Watch it," she snapped back. They were wearing a pink skirt and had flowing straight blonde hair and bright pink eyes.

"I said I was sorry. Jeeze. What's your problem? It wasn't that big of a deal," I went and ran my mouth.

The taller girl glowered back at me. "My problem? I'm not the one walking into people blindly."

"Ugh, whatever." Then I made some distance between myself and the crabby girl.

I sort of wandered to the side lost in thought and when I looked up I was alone in a garden path on campus. I'd lost the crowd. Oh, dang it. I didn't know my way around. I was lost and- wait. There was somebody. He was tall with blonde spiky hair. He had a titanic broadsword on his back in a harness. I knew him! He was Cloud! Cloud Strife. He saved my life. I thought about him a lot. Well not a lot a lot. But enough. I thought about him more than enough.

"Yuma Kisaragi," he greeted me warmly. "Color me shocked to see you here. It's been a while since I was in Wutai. How are you?" His voice was rich still.

I tried to think. I hesitated. He laughed, seeing my trepidation. "Don't remember me?"

"Sorry, of course I do." How could I forget him?

"It's not a big deal. I'm one of the professors here now. Come on. I'll walk you to the auditorium." He started taking slow long strides with his half cape behind him so that I could easily keep up. I was quite a bit shorter than him. He led through the fountains and gardens along a path to one of the larger buildings on campus.

"You had someone else with you when you came to Wutai… who was she? I can't remember."

"Neapolitan. So you made it into Beacon. Well done. I'm surprised you didn't end up in Haven."

"They… they rejected my application. Beacon was the only big school that accepted me."

"Better one than none, right? This way." He led me into a large auditorium where there was the entire body of students. "This is where I leave you. Good luck with initiation."

"Oh, thank you. It was nice seeing you again!" I waved goodbye to him and raised my hand to my mouth to shout.

There was a tall blonde woman with bright green eyes standing near a podium. She was flanked by a man in glasses with a tie and his shirt half tucked in and a round man in a red and gold military uniform with a large mustache. The woman was just wrapping up a speech and stepping down. Oh dear, I missed what she said. Better follow the crowd again.

I spotted a girl with silvery pink hair and bright blue eyes. She had a complicated looking double edged sword strapped to her side. I resolved to follow her amongst the crowd. She seemed like she knew where she was going.

We were bunking down in one of the upper rooms of the academy. Everyone seemed to be changing into sleeping attire and getting ready for bed. The older students seemed to have a place in the dorms but for first years we were all spread out on one of the upper floors of the academy.

I changed into my PJ shirt and bottoms as well since everyone else was doing it. I climbed into a sleeping bag and resolved to get a good night's sleep. It would be initiation day tomorrow. Another big day. Oh gods, what if I fail and they kick me out? Deep breaths Kisaragi. You can do this. But you have got to pull yourself together.

"You…" I looked up to see the pink haired girl with her hands on her hips. She was looking at another girl with green hair and white wings like a bird.

"So, we meet again, princess," the bird faunus shot back. Princess? She probably wasn't a real princess. The faunus spoke in such a teasing tone that the title sounded like an insult. It was probably just that and nothing more.

"I owe you harshly for that final round. I beat you. If I hadn't been in loser's-"

"But you were in loser's. It was really too bad for you," she let out a ringing laugh. "You should have fought better. If you had maybe then we would have met in winner's side. I still would have won, but it doesn't matter now, does it?"

"I had you beat the first time. When and if we fight again I'll trounce you."

"No, you won't." The angel girl fired right back. "I'm too good. You were fun competition the once but I've got you downloaded now. That's why the second round was so fast. I just had to make a few adjustments and you were toast."

"We'll just see about that."

"Downloaded, princess." The green haired girl tapped herself on the temple with one finger. "I own you."

I had listened to the quarrel with rapt attention. I was a touch bored and there was little to do besides watch and listen to them banter. There was some serious history here. I just hoped that I wouldn't end up on a team with either of them. Especially together, could you imagine?

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

First thing in the morning I showered and brushed my teeth. Then all the first years were gathered out on pads before the deep green forest. The two blonde teachers were there. Cloud and the woman who I could only suppose was the headmistress.

I still didn't know her name. Oh good gods. But today was about combat. I could do this.

"Today your skills will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest. You will be assigned partners and teams for the four years you will be taught here. It would be favorable if you are partnered with someone you can work well with. As such, the first person you make eye contact with in the forest will be your partner. Make your way to the northern end of the forest and collect the relics waiting there. Each set of partners must obtain a relic. You will be graded on your performance throughout the duration of your trial. Best of luck to you all," the green eyed woman announced.

Then they started launching people into the forest! Just like that!

I gathered myself up. I could handle it. I just needed to find a good partner. I worked well with people. Who said I didn't? I was flung off into the forest with my peers.

I pulled my shuriken from my back and raised my shield. I landed on my shield and rolled cat-like on a tree branch to disperse my momentum. I slammed my blade into the tree trunk to stop myself. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I jumped down from the tree. Now to find a partner.

I took off through the forest at a sprint. Just had to find somebody. Anybody. I smacked headlong into somebody and we both fell to the ground. I groaned and looked up, rubbing at my head.

Oh no. Not-

"-You!" The girl snapped. It was the pink eyed blonde from yesterday. "Oh fuck. Why did it have to be you?"

"Don't swear at me. Do I look happy about this?" I demanded right back.

"You ran into me again! This does not bode well."

"I said I was sorry!"

"Now I'm stuck with you. It could have been anybody but it had to be you. Curse my rotten luck."

"Okay, okay I get it. You don't have to keep busting me. Let's start over and try to be friends. We do have to work together from now on."

"Fine. I'm Peach Locheart."

"I'm Yuma Kisaragi."

"Great, now we're all buddy buddy. Let's get a move on."

"Oh. Right." I started following the other girl. She had two enormous gauntlets, one for each fist, and heavy boots on her feet beneath that pink skirt. She had some dust crystals on her waist. Uncut dust fragments.

"So…" I trailed off.

"So?" She shot back with some heat.

"So I fight with my shuriken and my shield. How about you?" I tried to make conversation a little. Not too much. Just a tad.

"Are you serious right now?" She wasn't having any of that it would seem. She saw right through me and she was laughing at my attempts.

"I'm just trying to get to know you. And you're getting mad at me about it. Why?" I whined a little. But only a little.

She snorted at me. "Whatever. I use my fists and feet. I like the real impact against Grimm. I like to feel it."

"Okay… well how about those dust crystals?" I asked. "They look useful."

"Oh they're just for my ranged attacks. In case I can't get close for some reason or another. You know it's funny. Did you see that young hot professor? The really young one?"

"Um…" I stammered off at her description of Cloud. Not that I necessarily disagreed. He was good looking. And he had to be competent to be such a young professor. Not to mention he cleared Merlot's old abandoned laboratory and he saved me from the bandits. There was an appeal to him that was hard to deny. He had edge and he cut a dangerous figure with his weapon. But to just come right out and say it was too much. I flushed a little. I felt my face getting hotter.

"Ah, you do know the one I'm talking about. Him. Tall, blonde, and cut. He was beside the headmistress back there. He was the one who taught me to use dust. He came by my town one time. I live in this little place called Nibelheim near Atlas."

"No way…" I breathed.

"Which part was too hard for you to understand?"

"Not that," I huffed. This girl! "It's just that I know him too. He came by my village in Anima once. He saved my life."

"Ooh. Nice. I would mind being saved by him if you know what I mean. Meow." She was so unbelievably bold. How could she?

"It's nothing like that!"

"Sure it's not. Gods, you're getting so red. Don't pass out on me. I'm not carrying you through this forest. I'll leave you where you drop, I mean it."

"But you're the one who's talking about him like-like-like-" I stammered off into mixed syllables.

"Like he's hot? So what? He is." Peach wondered.

"How can you?" I demanded. She was so… so self assured. She was confident where I was just not. In ways I was just so self conscious she seemed ready and firm. I wasn't a shy girl per se but this was too much for me.

"I'm not a school girl with a crush? I know what I like and I like it? That's how."

"So what? I'm just a school girl with a crush?"

"I don't know. Are you?" She pressed interrogatively.

"You're infuriating," I snapped at her.

"And you're entertainment value if you're nothing else."

The nerve!

I quickened my step to pass the confident blonde. I marched furiously forward. The absolute audacity of it all. She was so frustrageous.

"Hey!"

"What?" I shot back whipping around at her.

"Watch out for that Gr-"

Then something hit me very hard on the back of the head.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I woke up with a shoulder digging into my stomach. I let out a low groan.

"Oh, you're awake. Well you can walk for yourself now."

Peach set me down. I took a moment to gather my bearings.

I was still in the forest.

"What hit me?" I wondered.

"Ursa. Don't worry. I killed it."

"You carried me," I said stupidly. I knew it was dumb even as I said it.

"Yeah well I couldn't let it impact my grade. Now could I?"

She held a hand down to me to help me up. I took it. She easily lifted me to my feet.

"North… it's this way?" I asked pointing in a direction orthogonal to the sun.

"That's south, sweetie. Come on. I want to find those relics. Faster is probably better for our standings."

I followed Peach through the woods. We came across a clearing with ruins. There were chess pieces of gold on top of pedestals.

"These must be the relics. Does it matter which one we take?" I wondered.

"Maybe. I dunno. Let's grab a horsey and be on our way."

"I can't believe we're stuck together." I turned in the direction of a new and sort of familiar voice. It was the pink haired girl. She was walking beside the green haired faunus she had been arguing with.

"Oh don't be like that," the bird faunus purred out. "We'll make for an excellent team. I'll show you all your weaknesses. Your many, many, weaknesses. How do you function?"

The pink haired girl grit her teeth. She stalked over to me and grabbed a golden chess piece.

"Um… hello." I gave a little wave.

She just stared at me with a little heat. Then she marched away without saying anything back. I sighed heartily.

"Come on sweetie. Don't take things to heart," my new partner patted me on the back. "Let's go."

There came a roaring screech from overhead. A giant nevermore loomed and fired a dozen quills down at us. I back-flipped and took shelter in the ruins. My partner hid beside me for a second and watched the monster pass on by.

"Do we try and kill it? Or just run?" I asked.

"Definitely in a killing mood." She stood up and crushed a yellow crystal and fired a thunderbolt that struck the monster on the soaring wing.

The pink haired girl crouched down and opened fire with an automatic rifle. Her partner blocked a quill with her shield and fired three bolts of light from the tip of her staff which impacted the monster.

I tossed my shuriken and it collided with the creature with enough stopping power to make it falter in the air. I caught the shuriken on the bounce back.

"You!" The pink haired girl snapped at me. "Force it to land. Aim for the same side as your partner."

I looked over at my partner and she shrugged and crushed another crystal and fired it off and hit it on the left wing. I slung my shuriken once more and it bit deep into that same side.

The pink haired girl stopped shooting as the bird was falling and sprinted at the creature. She was fast and her weapon became a two edged blade. "Now's our chance, Pine." The faunus nodded in agreement and took off with her in flight.

The pink haired girl landed in front of the monster. She hamstringed it and I took off after them to reclaim my weapon. My partner jumped and punched it in the head and sent it reeling down towards the green haired girl who thrust her staff upwards and shot a pillar of light through the monster's body.

It dissolved into yucky Grimm goo and I gathered my weapon from the mess.

"That's that, then." The blue eyed girl said. Without another word she turned and continued north. I watched dumbly for a second before my partner came up beside me and shocked me into motion.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	132. Gainsborough III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"-team command led by Crystal Velcruse." Headmistress Goodwitch roved her eyes down her clipboard on stage. The letters CMAD appeared behind her as she did for a little flare of the dramatic along with several rows of faces. The students in question walked up onto the stage to shake the headmistress's hand.

I waited with baited breath. Sure my partner wasn't who I hoped it would be. In fact it was the one person I'd been actively hoping that it wouldn't be. But the rest of my team could be a golden ticket. "Next we have those who collected the White Knight pieces. Team ripe led by Rosé Gainsborough."

My face and the first letter of my name appeared. The name was spelt RYPP. I looked over. It was the other girls from the initiation up there. I inhaled to gather my resolve and marched onto the stage and shook the headmistress's hand. My team followed behind me. My team. I had my own hunter team. It was a dream come true.

Cloud was on stage behind the headmistress. He applauded along and gave me a grin. I looked away quickly before I could get any ideas.

"Say, he was your coach at the tournament. That's where I've seen him before. What's he doing here?" My partner wondered loud enough for me to hear over the applause as we walked back off stage.

"He's the new combat instructor."

"He's a little young but if he trained you then how good can he be?"

I grit my teeth a little. She always had to try and ruin things.

"I was good enough to beat you. I had you in a panic over with your own mentor and team. You had to have some help to beat me. You were in a tizzy."

She folded her arms at me. "Not on your life. Keep dreaming."

"We'll just see when we inevitably rematch. We'll make this a best two out of three."

"You're so on, princess."

"Here we go…" the little girl Yuma muttered.

"Can't you two shut the fuck up?" The pink eyed girl asked. "My gods."

"Not exactly the way that I would have put it…" Yuma mumbled some more.

Take charge Rosé. You're the leader now. You shouldn't be trading barbs with your partner. You're supposed to be the boss.

I sighed heavily. "Look, let's just head to our dorm. Things will be better after a night's rest in a real bed. We've all had a long day. Sound fair?"

I got a mumbling chorus of agreement and nods. My partner looked away from me. My partner, who was supposed to be my best friend, was this bitch. Life was so not fair. At least the rest of my team was alright. Or so I thought off of first impressions. It could be much worse. I knew my partner was competent and she would be good to train with. So there was that. Gotta have a glass half full attitude, Rosé.

The weeks I spent with my family went... okay. They went by fast. I spent a lot of time at the firing range just to have something to do. It had been odd. We just hadn't clicked like we did before the attack on Vale. They had changed or maybe I had changed - probably both.

My mother had pestered me incessantly about Cloud. What was he really like? What was his attitude on this or that or the other thing? Couldn't a girl struggle in peace? Apparently not. And that was at least better than my brother had been. He was-no, he is so antagonistic towards Cloud that I could hardly be around him after everything Cloud and I have been through together.

And now I finally had a team and was a Beacon and it was nothing like what I had been expecting. I felt myself to be a little disappointed. It wasn't everything I hoped and dreamed but maybe that wasn't really fair. Maybe I had hoped for too much and set my expectations way too high.

"So the Prof trained you? You know him?" Peach asked me. "That's crazy. What are the odds? He taught me how to use dust in exchange for a favor and my partner says he saved her life. How nuts is that?"

"Really?" I asked. I hadn't known that he'd had a pupil before me.

"Yeah. I live up in Solitas and he came by my town looking for a laboratory built by this mad scientist. I showed him the way to it and in exchange he taught me to use dust in its raw form."

"He went to my village for a laboratory, too. Then he saved my life from a group of bandits," Yuma murmured.

"What are the chances?" I wondered. "While he was training me he found a third lab. There were all these weird, messed up Grimm around it."

"Same," Peach said.

"There used to be messed up Grimm near Wutai, my home, then he came and killed them," Yuma chimed in.

What a small world we lived in.

We climbed the stairs to the dorm. We each were given a key to the room: room three hundred and five. Bathrooms were communal which really wasn't going to be a problem. I was used to harder conditions while I traveled with Cloud. Daily showers were a win in my book.

I just had to get this partner thing sorted out. Maybe I'd get along well enough with my other teammates. That was a possibility. Of course if it came down to some sort of cold war the last thing I wanted was for it to be three on one in either direction. That would be harsh no matter how it spun out.

I just wanted things to work out. Was that too much to ask? In the short term I wanted a good partner and then I would graduate then yadda yadda yadda then be with Cloud when our age gap wasn't so noticeable. It wasn't much of a plan but it was something. It was that middle part which had me worried. Yadda yadda yadda wasn't much of a plan. I had no idea how to catch his eye in a womanly fashion and my mom had been no help. I really wanted a good partner who I could be best friends with but I was fairly sure Pine Telimess wasn't it. She was all in my face and challenging.

Our stuff was waiting for us in our room. My luggage was on my bed. I still packed light from my travels with Cloud. I guess I shouldn't be calling him Cloud anymore either. Professor Strife was what I should be thinking. I didn't want to slip up.

I changed into my pyjamas. Luckily we were all girls unlike team CMAD. Mixed genders would be much more difficult to manage just on a daily level.

Pine shut off the lights. She was wearing just a loose shirt with holes cut in the back for her wings and a pair of boy shorts. And I crawled into bed. It was comfortable. More comfortable than sleeping on the ground. It was more firm than the too large bed at my family castle. I found that I liked it. It was a good fit. I closed my eyes and exhausted I fell dizzyingly to sleep.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Alright." Professor Strife spoke up from the ring. I looked down at him from my seat. The class was still muttering above him. "Alright!" He shouted at the top of his voice which was fairly loud. The voices quieted down beside me. "Pay attention because nine out of ten of you will be dead in ten years. And I'm about to save your life." There was an implied 'motherfucker' at the end of his brief speech so far. He had everyone's attention at this point, eyes focused on him.

"You'll have rounds of combat against the other members of your class. In particular you'll mostly train with your partner. If you can beat your partner then you're responsible for keeping them alive by getting them up to speed so that they can beat you. Push one another. It's your best chance at survival. Take this class seriously because you will absolutely die if you don't. Most hunters never reach retirement. Most die in a brutish fashion. I'm responsible for making your class an exception to this statistical nightmare. Any questions for me so far? None? Good. Mars Graty and Crystal Velcruse you're up first. Gather your weapons and step into the ring."

He looked down at a data pad in his hand while the students he called out went to gather their equipment from their lockers. Crystal was a tall girl with pale blue hair and opalescent eyes. She had an oval shaped face and was classically pretty. Mars was a scraggly broad shouldered boy with red hair and dark brown eyes. He had a firm jawline for someone so young.

A quiet series of murmurs broke out when the Professor looked away. He seemed fine with it for the moment while we just waited.

"Is he always like this?" Pine asked me.

"He's usually much more pessimistic," I answered in kind. She was being amiable. I would match her temperament.

"More than this?"

"Sometimes. Cloud, that is Professor Strife, must be in a good mood."

"Good gods above."

"Sh," I hushed.

The girl, Crystal, had two kukri knives that doubled as submachine guns. The boy, Mars used a sword and shield which could combine into something large. I wasn't sure what yet. They stepped into the ring and their full auras showed on the holographic display above their heads.

"I will call the match once either of your aura's fall into the red or by ring out. The rest of you will pay attention and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. You may fight them one day in this class and you will be graded and have a class standing. Are both of you ready?"

Mars nodded but never took his eyes off of Crystal. Crystal murmured a low 'yes.'

"Three… two… one… begin!"

Crystal pump faked forward then jumped backward shooting the whole time while Mars just ran right at her with his shield up to close the distance. He blocked most of the bullets on his shield and it became immediately obvious from how much aura he lost from the bullets that got through that he was a tank. His fighting style would revolve around that. Professor Strife was a tank of sorts as well, though, he did have dps tendencies.

Crystal descended with her knives and tried to slip in to where she would be most effective with them but was knocked back by the shield. It was a big obstacle and she had better find a way around it if she wanted to win.

She slashed at him three quick times with her knives and he blocked them all with his kite shield. Then he took a stab at her with his blade and tried to do some damage of his own. He had her at the range he wanted her. He had her pinned against the side of the arena.

"She's got this," my partner murmured.

"No way. He has her in the corner," I disagreed.

The ball was in Crystal's court now. She parried expertly with both blades and then leapt to the side and shot him on the flank. She came up in a roll and sliced at his back twice before he could turn around. He was wearing armor. That would slow him down a little. He would have to be quicker than that if he wanted to stay in this. Maybe my partner was right? What did she see that I didn't? Was it Crystal's speed?

Crystal kept backing up and shooting. It was just chip damage but it would add up and it forced him to approach her in which case she could just keep running away.

He chased her. He had to. He swung his sword at her but she just stepped back and shot him some more. He lunged forward. He was getting desperate. She punished him with four quick slashes and a round kick. He staggered back and ate some more bullets.

He closed in on her again and pinned her against the side of the arena. She was in the corner once more. He brought his weapon down on her before she could escape and she blocked it by making an 'x' out of her weapons. It left her face exposed and he punched her hard with his shield and cut her across the chest as she was knocked back. She waved her arms and desperately tried not to fall out of the ring.

In that moment he slid his weapons together And turned them into a rocket launcher. He knelt and fired right at her feet. She jumped before he even pulled his weapon together and kicked him in chest. Then she went in on a flurry of fast cuts that chipped his aura to the red.

"You were right. I'll be damned," I said.

"Yeah but for the wrong reason. I didn't know he would pull that out. Did you see her dodge it?"

"I did. How did she move so fast?"

"Good job," the Professor congratulated the boy with a pat on the back. "You trapped him very well. Next up is Fox Alcotte and Daisy Melisse."

Fox was a blonde boy with orange eyes. He was svelte and lean with muscle. And Daisy was a white haired girl with hazel eyes. She was short and limber. A petite thing, really.

They rushed off to the locker room to gather their gear.

"I just thought that I was wrong. She was chipping him down slowly. Her strategy was good for someone constantly dodging the corners," I explained to my partner. "But the way she pulled that out at the end there was crazy."

"Yeah. I think she got lucky," she confessed.

"I suppose…"

"Do you think I got lucky in our match?"

"Not really. You called me out on my empty hop with your light dust pillar. That was the big game changer in our match. That's where you made your money."

"You saw that, huh."

"Yeah. I really should have known it was going to work twice without proper conditioning."

"We'll see how it goes in our rematch."

Fox used a set of metal boots. He fought in a green shirt and beige shorts. Daisy was in a yellow combat skirt and she held an enormous two handed maul - antimaterial rifle combination. She swung the heavy instrument around easily.

The match started and Fox sprinted forward over Daisy's first shot. And he landed on her with a forward kick that he converted into a dashing kick. Keeping his combo alive he jumped and did a one eighty and slammed his heel into her head and rocked her to the floor.

She kicked back to her feet and brought her hammer around her body and down on his but he easily saw it coming and dodged. He stepped inside her range and bicycle kicked her in a back-flip in place. She tried to make some space with her hammer but she was being rushed down by Fox's offense.

She thrust the hammer forward, letting it fly through her hands a little and it connected with Fox's chest and knocked him to the ground. Daisy jumped and brought the hammer head slamming downwards into his prone form. She smashed him into the stage hard enough that I winced. Note to self, don't let Daisy have the space to hit you. You will regret it if you do. She cleaved away an enormous chunk of his orange aura in those two blows. It became clear that while Fox could dish out long combos he couldn't take a hit nearly as much. He rolled away as fast as he was able and leapt back to his feet. He sprinted forward and did a leaping kick that Daisy caught and shoved to the side. He side-flipped and kicked her in the jaw and knocked her to the ground. He didn't let up and brought his heel down on her chest but Daisy lowered her barrel and shot him point blank. He was knocked off of her and she crouched into a kneeling position and shot him again. The anti-material rifle roared.

Like that he was in the red and Professor Strife called the match. It had been a good one. Way too close to call before the end.

The Professor consulted his data tablet. "We have Yuma and Peach next. You know the drill. Get your gear and ready up."

My other teammates left our side in a rush. "We're probably next," my partner muttered. She sounded… excited? A little pleased. I couldn't help but grin a little. I wanted another shot at her and she felt the same way.

Yuma came out with her shuriken and shield. Peach arrived into the ring with her enormous gauntlets.

On go, Peach crushed a dust crystal and just like I had been taught she swept a hand forward and cast a fireball at Yuma. Yuma dived to the side but Peach dashed forward under the cover the fireball provided.

She stepped up and hit Yuma square in the jaw. She hit her hard enough that little Yuma went through half a back-flip and landed square on the ground. Yuma kicked her way to her feet by scissoring her legs. The rapid motion forced Peach to back up a step and gave Yuma the room to reach her feet again.

Yuma swung her shuriken like a blade and forced Peach to back up even further. Yuma then skipped the shuriken across the floor like a stone on a river. It hit Peach in the chest and it was big and heavy on impact. It ricocheted off Peach and back to Yuma with the well practiced throw. Yuma dashed forward and slammed her shield-gauntlet into Peach but Peach pushed her shoulder and sent her stumbling to the side. Peach lashed out with a kick and two rapid fire punches into Yuma's back.

They were brutal blows and by the time they finished Yuma's aura was in the yellow. Yuma kept stumbling forward to escape and whipped around with her heavy giant shuriken and cut Peach across the body with it. She then jabbed one of the points of the star forward and Peach caught it on the dull part with an open palm before she could be stabbed. She swept Yuma's leg out from under her but Yuma was cat like and back-flipped in place. Yuma swung her gauntlet arm in a wide attempt at smacking Peach in the head. Peach actually stepped into the blow and fired off a punch with that same hand straight into Yuma's head followed by a wide haymaker that knocked Yuma to the floor and put her aura in the red.

At melee range Yuma had basically no chance and it had showed. Peach knew that she should force an option out of Yuma and make her approach and once inside she never let up. It was smart work. Peach helped Yuma to her feet and though Yuma sighed heavily she seemed content with her performance. It was clear that Peach hit like a truck. Each hit seemed to be harder than the last.

As my partner predicted we were next. We rushed quickly to the lockers and changed out of our uniforms. Pine had to have a special tailored uniform so that her wings could stick out the back and not be cramped. I couldn't help myself. I was excited. I wanted the run back.

We were both ready at the same time and walked out onto the arena. Pine had some pep in her step as she crossed to the far side from me.

"Are you both ready? Three, two, one, go," Cloud called out.

Pine started out with a teleport that instantly crossed the distance between us. I jumped back and swung downward with one hand into the space that I thought she was about to occupy. I missed and she jumped and smacked me with her shield. I fell back and caught myself on a handstand and pushed off the ground to regain my feet. I landed just in time for her staff to come swinging down at my head from the right. I blocked with Falchion. I jumped and in a move I shamelessly copied from Cloud I spun in the air and brought the edge of Falchion around on her twice. She blocked with first but was surprised by the second and I slashed her across the head for it.

I landed and swung in a quick four stroke attack that she barely blocked every hit of. Then I leaned forward and thrust three times with the tip of my blade in rapid succession. All three thrusts caught her. She teleported back five feet as a panic option to escape my pressure. I jumped and brought my blade down on the space she just exited. Then I landed and swept my blade in a wide arc forward which caught her in the chest. I jumped and did a three sixty and brought my blade from low to high as I turned around and I knocked her to the floor. She kept retreating. She teleported to the far side of the stage and fired three bolts of light at me. All three caught me in the chest mid jump while I was defenseless.

I caught myself out of the tumble and then I rushed at her as safely as I could. I didn't want to change my weapon's form even if it could help me win the ranged battle because that's what she was waiting for. As soon as I switched she'd teleport on top of me and enter melee. I would lose. I had to approach her and that meant getting through her zone.

I jumped over a fireball and dodged two more bolts of light then I was on top of her. I jumped and sliced forward simultaneously. She blocked but then as I was falling I spun in a circle once more and brought the blade down and around on her. The blow caught her across the chest and I stepped forward and did a massive two handed swing that cut the whole way across her body and had enough force to almost throw her from inside the ring.

She teleported again and this time I successfully read her and cut down on her with a falling one handed swing. She had better make some adjustments. Or I would be taking this thing.

She rolled across the ground before flying up in the air. She flew past me and, holding her staff in two hands at one end, brought the far reaching weapon down at me. It clanked with Falchion but she had been expecting that and she bowled into me with her shield. I caught myself but she hit me again with that same lunging dash with her shield. Then she flew in my face and kicked me in the chin and she finished the whole thing off by setting me on fire with one of those standing fireballs that she favored.

She tried to follow up but I hopped out of range and safely brought my weapon down on her and forced her to block. I had conditioned her to expect only one aerial. She didn't expect me to land and follow my first slash up with three more. Each one caught her and flung her back.

I then jumped once more like I was going to pressure her with falling aerial attacks. It was empty movement. I landed. Grabbed her. Swapped my weapon's form and shot her in the chest until Cloud called the match.

He clapped a few times and I released Pine.

"I'll get you next time," she vowed. She was grinning. "You hit me with that pump fake again."

"The empty hop?" I asked.

"Is that what you call it?" She shot back.

"Empty movement, yeah. It's one of Professor Strife's favorite habits. It's much more devastating when he does it. He's made me eat dirt without touching me before. Just psyched me out with the threat of falling aerials."

"I'd like to see that." She laughed in that same bell-like voice. I somehow found it a touch less obnoxious than before. It was hard to hate something so genuine.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	133. Gainsborough IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Rosé PoV)

Gods, Professor Port's class was so boring. At least after so called Grimm Studies we had combat class. I looked forward to it and not just because it was taught by my favorite Professor. I sighed despondently. I shot a glance over at my partner. She looked just as bored as I was and she was idly setting a pencil on her desk and letting the slight slope it had roll it back to her. It became clear within, oh - I don't know, minutes that Port's class wasn't one where note taking was advised. Neither was paying attention, really.

If it had been Cloud up there lecturing at least I would have something to look at. Believe it or not but Port lacked that same aesthetic appeal as Strife had. Ponder away on that one. But I suppose that wasn't fair on Port, or Cloud, for that matter. Sometimes I accidentally self imposed careless wants on him - emotional involvement that was totally unrequited. I couldn't help it. That wasn't a very good excuse. He was my Professor now - not just my mentor anymore. It would be most inappropriate. But still, I liked what I liked.

There was no way that Cloud had once endured this. I refused to believe it. This boredom was not his way.

Not much longer now… I watched the clock tick by slowly. It was so unmercifully methodical that maybe it was broken.

The bell rang and I was quick to my feet. Peach looked as amped as I felt about the end of Grimm Studies for the day. She actually pumped a fist into the air in silent celebration. Port was still telling his story as people were filing out of the door.

First thing in the morning was math with Doctor Cauchy then we had history with Oobleck. Next was Grimm Studies and last, just before lunch, was Combat. After lunch came literacy, politics, physical science, then at the very end of the day was economics with Professor Arbor. Beacon was a full on school. The last school most of us would ever attend. It wasn't all fighting and monster slaying. There was a full retinue of classes besides those ones. And they were typically hard ones too. Port's was an exception rather than the rule. I could already tell. Some teachers you could just know that about based on how they conducted themselves. Cloud's class was not the easy sort by its very nature. I couldn't necessarily credit him and his teaching style with that. I was up against my peers and they weren't going to make things easy for me.

The other first years and I made our way to Cloud's classroom with the arena in it that linked up with the locker rooms and we found our seats. Professor Strife was down in the arena looking at a tablet display and getting things set up for today's matches. He glanced up and the conversation died down.

"Rosé and Crystal get your gear. You're up first," he broadcasted his voice without actually shouting up at us.

He was probably the youngest Professor in Beacon's history. He really was basically our age for all intents and purposes. It was important to remember that. For me it was crucial. In four more years it would be relatively non-existent. He would always be older than me but the gap would close slightly with time. And it was important to me because - well, it just was. He wasn't that much older than me but I did like that he was slightly older. It was a perfect goldilocks.

I shot a look over to Crystal. She didn't return it. She was already up and moving down the rows of seats to the floor. I followed close behind her all the way to the locker room where I changed out of the uniform and got ready to fight the other girl. I took off the plaid skirt and put on my own silver and crimson one.

Crystal won her fight yesterday. I won mine as well. Was Cloud putting us through a bracket to determine class standings? It seemed likely.

I put my belt with Falchion sheathed in it around my waist and walked out of the locker room. Crystal was waiting for me in the ring with her kukris. She was going through a kata in slow motion to warm up.

I stepped opposite her and Cloud started the match once we both affirmed that we were ready.

Crystal sprinted at me which was a touch surprising. Against Mars she spent her time running to the corners and backing up while shooting. I expected a similar strategy this time. She didn't give it up, however. She approached me while shooting. I fired back a little. I started in assault rifle mode because I had been expecting a cat and mouse game. That wasn't what I got and I had to switch my weapon's form and eat some bullets. It put me on the back foot when she came slicing at me with her long knives. It was clear that she didn't think she needed to run away to beat me - quite the opposite, in fact.

She came slashing at me with a spiraling jump that brought both her blades around. I met both slashes with Falchion's edge. I fancied that I was stronger than her based off of our one interaction. Just main strength, though, which could mean a lot if I took proper advantage of it.

I jabbed forward and upward with my blade in a fast cut. She swayed in place out of the way of my attack preternaturally. I followed it up with another upwards cut but she dodged that one in place as well. I wasn't sure how she knew I was setting myself up for two jabs. But she seemed to see it coming from a mile away. Then she went in on me with a horizontal slash at neck height with one blade, then a diagonal slash with her other, and then an upwards cut with the first and she finished the entire thing off with a kick that was just hard enough. It knocked me off balance and put me into a tumble situation. I had to catch myself and roll to the side but she was unrelenting and I struggled to escape from her onslaught. I did a retreating jumping forward swing of my blade that she blocked by crossing her weapons. I waited for her to go in once more, thinking that perhaps she thought I had over extended. I ended up landing with the two of us just staring at one another. She didn't see it as an opening, she knew that it wasn't. She instead raised her guns and shot me.

I had to go in if I wanted to keep her in my range.

I darted forward and thrust upwards with my sword. She sidestepped easily and stabbed me in the stomach with a quick thrust and then she stepped with her other blade and cut me across the chest.

She kept that up. She kept creating openings with her guns and then baiting me out and punishing me. I was going to lose if I couldn't find an answer.

I jumped again and brought my weapon around my body twice and she stepped back out of the way of the first and she parried the second. It was safe pressure from me and she wasn't able to riposte with her shorter daggers.

I landed and swung diagonally downward quickly and I caught her across the body. I chased her with three more slashes all of which connected.

She rolled away from me but when she got to her feet she sprinted towards me again. She clearly didn't want to have me at the longest ranges. Did that mean that I wanted her at those distances? Did she know something that I didn't?

I wasn't sure.

I didn't have time to swap Falchion's form because she was in my face and shooting me again. I jumped like I was going to hit her with a falling aerial but it was empty movement and I was looking for a different opening and trying to bait her out. She saw right through it and jump kicked me in the chest with both feet in a hard punish.

She was seeing through all my traps. All my attempts to bait her were failing and I could scarcely touch her. She saw through my empty hop like she'd seen it a thousand times and she got the best possible castigation she could on it.

I tried to feint high and sweep my blade low but she used one blade to block and she cut me with the other. I stepped back, ready for her to rush me down but she didn't. She just shot me again.

I didn't have any answers to her shutting down all my options while constantly whittling away at me. I didn't know what to do or what to try.

I was wracking my brain for something to give me an edge but she was bleeding me dry. I looked the bluenette in the eye and I knew that she knew that I knew that I didn't have any good answers.

I jumped and brought my blade down on her but she stepped in and grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me towards her. She quickly stabbed me five times in the chest. Then while I was off balance she shoved me over her foot and knocked me to the ground. She wasn't above kicking me while I was down, or shooting me, as it were, and it didn't take many shots to knock me into the red and have Cloud call the match.

"Well done Crystal. And Rosé let this be a lesson in maintaining composure under pressure."

I changed and made my way back to my seat. I felt utterly defeated. Pine was up against Mars and had already been called to get ready but the rest of my team was waiting for me.

"That looked rough," Peach commented, looking beleaguered like she had been the one fighting.

"I didn't have any answer. I didn't know what to do. She kept shutting me down at every turn. I think I only got in on her once and I didn't make much out of it. She kept calling out my feints and traps like she'd seen them all before. I've only ever felt so shut down against Professor Strife or his friends."

"Neapolitan?" Yuma asked me.

"Yeah. I fought her a few times. How did you know?"

"She was with him when he came to Wutai. I always thought they were, you know..."

"Fucking?" Peach asked.

"Well they're not," I shot back hotly. Yuma flushed at her partner's words. But she did nod that that was what she was thinking.

"Easy girlfriend. I didn't mean anything by it."

I sighed. "Sorry. Crystal has got me frustrated. She was pretty deep in my head."

I sighed and sat down to watch Pine's match. Composure. I needed composure. Crystal had been a good sport and everything. I was just mad at myself for cracking so visibly. And in front of him, no less. That sucked. I was going to be replaying this in my head for at least a week.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Sorry about our match today," Crystal murmured to me over the dinner table. My team was sitting with team CMAD.

"Sorry that you won? Don't be. You had me outclassed. You deserved to win." I adjusted my skirt on the bench we were sitting on. The wood was biting into my thighs a little.

The dinning hall was enormous with tall glass windows and long benches and tables. It gave everything an exaggerated quality, like it was stretching things a bit far.

Crystal cringed a little. "I thought that you were mad."

"I was mad. You took me apart and saw through all my traps. How did you do that?"

"I used my semblance…"

"What is it? Super reflexes? You were dodging everything I threw at you."

"It's something like that. It helps me get the mental edge for sure. Over almost everybody."

"Who doesn't it work on?" Peach asked.

"Well most of the Professors here for example. Like Professor Strife. I can't see beating him. Him or the headmistress both."

"You wanna try?" Pine asked. "Rosé says he does extra one on one training with anyone who asks. Rosé and I were going to make an appointment. You want to come with us?"

"I do want to try… yeah I think I will," Crystal decided. "It'll be good for me. I can see that."

"He's really good," I warned her. "I can barely touch him when he doesn't let me. And I think he did that more often than he will admit."

"Well, I think I'll be able to touch him. I can see myself doing that, at least."

"Awesome. Let's get it," Pine clapped her hands hard to emphasize her words.

"I suppose that I should as well. I mean, who wouldn't want some one on one time with the Prof. Am I right ladies?" Peach tagged with a laugh.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Fox asked.

Peach leveled her fork at him. "He's hot, talented, and powerful. The trifecta."

"Is he?" Mars asked. He seemed to be genuinely asking.

"Yeah. He is, Yuma knows what I'm talking about," Peach went on.

"Don't drag me into this!" Yuma flushed a little.

"Dibs," I said.

"What?" Peach asked.

"Dibs. I called dibs."

"Whelp the jig is up. She called dibs. Dibs is a dibs is a dibs," Pine poked fun at me.

"You can't call dibs," Peach protested.

"Sure I can," I countered. "I saw him first. I call dibs."

"The rest of us had better pack it up and head home. She's got this," Pine continued laughing.

"To answer your question, yes, he's conventionally attractive," Crystal informed her partner.

"I think I got that. Thanks," Mars took a drink of water at that.

"I'm pretty sure that Yuma saw him first, technically speaking," Peach pointed out.

"Yeah but she didn't call dibs. I did. Dibs. See? I did it again."

"You can't call dibs on a person," Daisy cut in.

"Thank you Daisy. Finally, some reason," Peach leveled against me.

"Yeah, whatever," I fired back. "Crystal heard me. She's on my side."

"Definitely not. I'll fight him, sure. But I'll leave fuckin-"

"Alright, alright!" Yuma protested looking beat red. "Can we not talk about fucking our Professor?!"

People turned from tables over to look at who just shouted that across the hall. Yuma got even more red under all the attention.

"I hate you," Yuma told no one in particular. She was probably talking to all of us.

Crystal, Pine, Peach, and I all shared a laugh.

"But in seriousness I have dibs," I informed Peach.

"Oh you are so on, Princess. I'll have him eating out of the palm of my hand," Peach flicked her hair back at her words.

"Sure you will," I shot back. "By the by, you're probably fighting Crystal tomorrow. The Prof is putting us through a bracket. Best of luck," I sing-songed at her.

"Sorry," Crystal apologized to Peach.

"You haven't beaten me yet! I'm going to win."

"No," Mars and I said at the same time. We shared a look. We were the only two that had gone up against Crystal and knew what she could do. Peach was good but she was going to lose. Crystal was just too much.

"Yeah no you're not," Crystal muttered. It didn't sound cocky but it did seem self assured. Crystal had the strategy that she needed to win. Just like she had had against Mars and I both. She had all the tools she needed to see the way to win. "You'll lose tomorrow."

"The hell I will. I'm not canceling my winning streak at two."

"Okay," Crystal undercut knowingly.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	134. Locheart I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Peach PoV)

I sat down to breakfast with my team and our sister team, team CMAD. I adjusted my skirt uncomfortably on the bench before starting in on some toast and some fruit I had picked out from the chef's buffet line. I was in my normal wear rather than my uniform because it was Saturday. At long, long last we had some weekend.

I shot a glance over at Crystal. She was really good. As in after five days of combat classes she was the only one who hadn't dropped a match and that put her at the top of the class as the one to beat. She had crushed me. She'd seen every single trick I had up my sleeves like she'd seen them a thousand times. She had dodged my attacks and therefore avoided my semblance completely and when the moment was right she went in hard.

"So, now that it's finally the weekend what's everybody doing? Going to catch a movie, maybe?" I asked everyone nearby.

"Pine and I are going to ask Professor Strife for some extra lessons. Then after that I'm not sure," my team leader said between bites of an apple.

"Even on the weekend?" Crystal wondered.

"To any student who asks. They just need to make an appointment," Pine took over. After their initial bickering wore off, Rosé and Pine got along famously. And they only were fighting because they were so dang similar in the first place.

"Boring," I cut in.

"If you're serious about getting good you'll take him up on his offer and take the time to make the time for it," Rosé said.

"He taught you, right?" Yuma asked.

"Everything I know." Rosé answered. Rosé was decent in a fight from what I'd seen. Professor Strife hadn't put us against one another yet but it was only a matter of time. Both of us had only lost to Crystal and our partners. Professor Strife was working through a sort of bracket while having us fight our partners every other day. Poor Mars. He'd gone up against Crystal three times already. He'd lost every single time. And he wasn't bad either. I just wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about Crystal. Hell, I wasn't sure what to do about Crystal. She was a problem.

My team all went back and forth with our partners since we were closer in skill to one another. For me and my partner it was all about whether I could get in on Yuma and set up my Roll-up. My semblance let me do more damage if I hit in succession without being hit myself. So if Yuma could set up her zone she would win but if I could break it I could destroy her by getting an opening and making a combo happen.

"What about you Daisy?" I was desperately searching for someone else who was up to explore Vale.

"I might join the others. I mean, I guess. If everyone's doing it," Daisy muttered.

"Boo," I shamed her for going with the flow but I was probably going to cave as well.

"I think I'm going to make an appointment too," my own partner declared.

I sighed. It seemed like a losing battle. Strife was taking away my weekend.

"Mars and I were going to a shooting range in Vale but we can do that tomorrow," Fox said. Fox used a small laser pistol to supplement his kicking style. And Mars had his rocket launcher.

"Let's do it," Pine declared. She tossed her long green hair back as she did.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I went with. Everyone else was doing it. I suppose that I could have gone out to Vale alone but my heart just wasn't in it. Besides, I wanted to get better too. So we found Professor Strife's office and Crystal knocked on the door.

"Come in," the Professor's voice called out from inside.

Crystal pulled the door open.

The office was spacious with a dark desk and wooden shelves behind it. There was an enormous red-brown dog with a tattoo on its face by the Professor who was sitting behind his desk reading off of a glass monitor in front of him. He closed the display since we could see through it from our side and it could have confidential information like grades on it.

His enormous broadsword was hanging behind him and he was in his usual garb. A dark blue tunic with the hint of a breast plate beneath it. A pauldron on one shoulder and heavy gauntlets of silver Titania. He stood to greet us and I heard his dark heavy boots touch the floor and he was tall enough that I could make out his black pants and that half cape he wore. He also had a small red ribbon tied around his right bicep. His muscles were large and predominant and he had a narrow waist with broad shoulders.

"How can I help you ladies and gentlemen?" He asked in a smooth voice.

Crystal continued to lead the way. "I heard you're offering supplemental training, even on weekends. Is that true?"

"He has a dog!" Daisy squeaked.

"Meet Red. Don't worry. He's friendly."

Daisy bent down and shyly began to stroke its head but she got more into it the longer she pet the animal. The dog's tail thumped excitedly against the floor from the attention.

"It is true I offer extra lessons… did you all come here for that? I meant for it to be private sessions just in case a student wished to discuss something personal like their semblance with me."

"All the better," Crystal murmured.

"Is that really that important? I get semblances are a big deal but why the secrecy?" Pine asked.

"I never share the details of my semblance with anyone but my closest friends and confidants. What other people know about you can hurt you. A semblance is deeply private," Professor Strife explained with a gesturing palm. "If you're all comfortable with it being in the open it isn't an issue but some powers are more subtle than your teleportation, Miss Telimess. Compromising the details of a power poses risk. While I suggest that you tell your teammates about your abilities, especially your partners, it isn't necessary if you feel like sharing it leaves you vulnerable."

"I don't mind sharing," Fox shrugged.

"Mine is out in the open already," Pina agreed.

"I don't have one yet," Rosé went along. "Once I do though I can't imagine hiding it."

"Whatever," I chipped in. Sharing my semblance could be compromising but not by much. It was the sort of thing that was hard to stop but once you knew about you could break my combos and try and intervene. I saw the Professor's point well enough. I just didn't care a whole lot.

"Well my semblance is the sort of subtle power the Professor is talking about. I do mind. I'd like any discussion of it to remain private but I don't mind training with the rest of you," Crystal announced her disagreement.

"Well, that's that then," the Professor decided. "Do what you think is best. Let me set up a time to work with each one of you if that's what you all want and let's get started."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The Professor squared off against Crystal on the training room floor. Both of their auras showed green on the big display. He pulled his broadsword from the harness on his back. It was a massive, single edged instrument just over six feet long. It had a too long red handle beneath a wide guard.

Crystal sort of hesitated for a moment. It was odd. She wavered unusually. "I want you to not let me touch you. If you can," she said. She sort of shivered at the words as she watched him hold the blade in one hand easily. It must have weighed over one hundred pounds but he held it like a short sword. It couldn't be balanced at the guard at all. It was too large.

He gave her an agreeable, firm nod. "I can do that."

On go. He started hovering across the surface of the ground with his lead knee bent. He held the massive blade behind his body without any effort. Crystal shot at him and he paused to cast his blade forward and a wave of golden aura shot out. It blocked her bullets and he chased the wave following behind it and using it as cover.

Crystal dodged the beam but had to stop shooting. Cloud used that opportunity to approach.

He reversed and back-flipped at her and at the apex of his jump he swept his blade behind him and upwards in a tight arc.

The barest tip of the weapon whipped out and nearly caught Crystal in the chest. She blocked it but was shoved back by the sheer force of it. It didn't look like he put much effort into it either.

He descended to the ground and pushed off of the floor with his heavy boots. He bench pressed the enormous blade in an effort to swing it upwards and the attack nearly caught Crystal on the chest.

She rushed in seeing it as an opening but he brought the blade around and down in a golden and white arc all the way around his body. She had to block it and she strained against him even though he swung with one hand.

He landed and with their blades meeting he jabbed his left boot out in a round kick. It caught her in the stomach. He chased with a left sidekick and finally brought his weapon around in a low horizontal swing that caught her across the stomach.

He did ten percent of her aura just like that and it looked like he was being gentle.

She was put into a tumble but she caught herself in a cartwheel. He jumped and back-flipped at her to land just outside six feet away. With his back to her he jumped nearly ten feet in the air. He landed without throwing anything out and still Crystal didn't move. It wasn't an opening. There was no way to punish him. He did again and once again it wasn't an opening. And a third time. He had Crystal backed into the corner scared of his movement alone.

He whipped around on the third empty landing and swung his blade diagonally downward. He followed that with a hooking horizontal slash. Crystal blocked them both but was shoved around by the amount of force of the attacks. The next diagonal swing hit her. And then he made a quick 'x' in the air as easily as if he were writing something. Only what he was writing was a mark on Crystal's body.

Crystal was flung backwards nearly out of the ring but she caught herself again only for Professor Strife to land and bench press her into the air with an upward slash. It was evidently a combo starter for him because he jumped and brought his blade down from over his head on her body and he spiked her into the floor hard enough that she bounced off of it.

Like that another thirty percent of her aura was gone.

He hovered after her and back-flipped at her again and brought his sword from high to low. She blocked it but couldn't find a way inside. He held her more than six feet away at the tip of his blade and his arm's reach. It was safe pressure when he back-flipped all the way over her and then he sort of rolled in place in the air before falling back in front of her. He changed directions in mid-air so fast. He had her in the corner again just from this menacing movement alone.

Was this how skilled their teachers were? How was I going to catch up? And that flying, it must be his semblance or a part of it. It made him incredibly quick.

He walked up to her slowly with actual steps. Then he swept the blade down from shoulder height. She blocked it but she was still too far away to use her knives and too close to use her guns. He just held her at such a pristine distance. It was as though there was a bubble around him and the space he occupied that Crystal just couldn't breach nor could she safely exist in.

She darted forward and he just slashed across her body and floored her. A blue glow appeared around his form at that. He was suddenly wreathed in flames that licked at his body and his weapon. He hovered over to where she was getting up and he swung his blade down. He reversed in place and brought the weapon back up. Then he turned in place once more and this last hit launched her away where the other two were so fast I barely saw them. I couldn't be sure if it was two, three, or four times he hit her. It was all that fast.

He sighed and the blue glow faded from his body. That last series of blows had knocked Crystal into the red. She never once touched him. And he definitely had been going easy on her. Some of his attacks were done almost gently. Other's had been brutal and he let her have it; like when he spiked her into the floor. I realized my mouth was agape but I couldn't close it. There was a very good reason that he was the youngest Professor in Beacon's history. He was good. As in you-can't-touch-me good.

He slid his weapon back on his harness and paced over to where Crystal had landed. He hauled her to her feet easily. "Where was your game plan?" He asked. "When you fight usually you come at your opponents with a good game plan. You didn't have much of one this time. If at all. What happened? Did you panic? Are you nervous? You shouldn't be."

It was true. Against me and Rosé both she had had a definite plan to win. Against the Professor just now there was nothing like that. Had he too thoroughly shut her down? Could she not come up with anything when she had been so creative against Rosé, me, and Mars?

"I… it's my semblance. I couldn't come up with a way to beat you."

"We can talk more about your semblance in private. I'm worried about what will happen to you. If you run into another blind spot, then it could be disastrous. I want to talk to you tomorrow if you have the time."

"I do. I'll be in your office after lunch. Does one work?" She asked.

He checked his scroll. "It does. I'll see you then. Now… who's next?"

I raised a tentative hand when no one else did.

"Won't you join me in the ring, then? I'm sure we can find something for you to work on." I gulped but was resolved. If Crystal couldn't come with anything then what chance did I have? None. But I suppose that wasn't the point. He was a teacher not a real enemy. He was going to find my weaknesses and exploit them just as he had found Crystal's blind spot in her semblance. But at least afterwards I would get to know what my weak spots were.

I strapped on my gauntlets. I breathed deeply and entered the ring with him to take my beating. It was a little nerve wracking but I could probably come up with some sort of game plan. I'd lead with a crystal and try and close the gap and light him up with my semblance. If he spaced me out with his sword I would lose and it wouldn't be close. It probably wouldn't be close either way.

He counted down and on go he hovered at me just as he done to Crystal. Gods but he was fast. Much faster than he had seemed when I was just watching.

I tried with the dust crystal. I broke it and cast a thunderbolt at him just as he had once taught me. He saw it coming and deflected it off his wide blade. Then he was on top of me. He swept his blade in an arc above him that knocked me into the air. Then he jumped and hit me with a rising aerial. It was a quick little two piece but it hurt a lot. He didn't combo me longer than that though he probably could have. He let me land again before he charged at me. He spun around while gliding and brought his blade down from his shoulder height in baseball style swing. I caught it on my gauntlets and he slid on the ground and tripped me with the point of his feet. I fell forwards but he swept his blade around his body in another two attack combo. He let me reset again.

I broke a crystal and threw a fireball at him. I would need more dust after this but this was the time to use. He leapt through it holding his weapon flat like a shield and he swept past the flames.

He slammed into me with his blade digging into the arena floor and him holding it up at an angle and shoving it. It was pretty metal. And it hurt to get hit by. I stepped in and fired off a punch. He caught it on his elbow. Still it counted as a hit to my semblance. I fired off a round kick hoping to catch him in the stomach. He blocked that as well but it was hit for me. I swung for a third in a hook that was leveled at his head and had the force of a truck behind it.

He caught it and struggled against my strength. He overcame me and grabbed me and yanked me into his knee. That reset my hits. Then he picked me up and slammed me into the ground hard enough that I bounced. Then he did a quick 'x' on my body with his blade. He cut horizontally, then upwards, then he spun around and sliced across the entire calligraphy he was carving into my body. I was launched back. He charged after me and then he jumped at me like he was going to hit me with one of those devastating falling aerials he was fond of. I should have known it was an empty hop based off of Rosé. It shouldn't have surprised me when he whipped around and grabbed me again. He thrust his blade into my chest, flew twenty feet up into the air dragging me along. Then he flipped me over like a pancake and descended, dragging me along for the ride by the sword. He slammed me into the ground and knocked my aura into the red.

I sighed but let him help me to my feet.

"What's your semblance?" He asked.

"I hit harder with each successive hit before I get hit. It resets me when I get touched," I answered promptly. "I call it Roll-up."

"Interesting. You never were able to break my zone and get a combo started. You must be wary of an enemy zoning you out. You tried to break in with your crystals but you might need something else. Consider adding a gun to your equipment. I've seen shotgun gauntlets used to great effect by a similar style."

I nodded along. I knew most of that already and yeah I probably should add a gun to my retinue.

"You're too slow with your dust casting. It's too telegraphed. You need to practice speeding it up if you won't use a gun."

He didn't use one but he was a hovering menace who could summon projectiles from his aura. I was not. I should get a gun or practice being faster. .

I exhaled hard. "Thank you Prof."

"It's no problem. Who's next?"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	135. Living Legacy II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The clock struck one exactly and there was a knock at the door of my spacious office. It was confident, firm, and absolute. The person on the other end knew what they were here for. My dog perked its head up and looked over at where the sound emanated from.

"Come in," I called.

It was Crystal Velcruse. She stepped inside and shut the door behind her quietly and gently. My dog wagged its tail and she went ahead and scratched it behind the ears. When she stopped it let out a doggy sigh and slumped back to the ground. Its tail hardly moved.

It demanded more pets. More.

"Miss Velcruse, thank you for coming. I had the time to skim your file and read a little about your semblance but I'm afraid our files leave a lot to be desired. I hope you can clarify some things for me. You're a precog? Correct?" I gestured to the cushioned seat across from my desk and I pulled up her file on my display.

"I am. I can see the steps required to succeed at nearly any task."

"I see. And what are your limits?"

"I can't see more than fifteen minutes into the future. Give or take. I can also pose hypothetical questions and receive an answer from my semblance."

"So this is how you keep coming up with ways to beat your peers. This is deeply concerning to me. You are over dependent on your power. It wouldn't shock me if you were using it around the clock. Does it work for social situations?"

"Yeah it does. And yeah. I use it a lot. It's hard not to. It's so tempting."

"But it didn't give you a means to so much as touch me when we sparred."

"No. There wasn't a way to win."

"It left you floundering and dramatically weaker. It greatly concerns me because you may well come across monsters you can't beat either. Do you know what you should do in that case?"

"Not really. It never came up in my training."

"You should run away Miss Velcruse."

There was a beat of silence.

"Run away? Just give up?"

"Winning does not always mean fighting. Sometimes surviving is the best you can hope for. Should you throw away your life and the lives of everyone you could one day save by dying pointlessly? This is the hardest lesson for me to share and often the most difficult to grasp. Save yourself. Flee. There will come times that you cannot see a way to win. In those times you must come up with a way to escape. I want to continue working with you. This over dependence on your semblance must be addressed and I'm in a position to help since you cannot see a way to beat me. You have an extreme ability. It would be shameful for you to throw it away along with your life in a battle you know you cannot win."

"I understand. It's just… I'm supposed to be a hero. What kind of hero am I if I run away."

"A clever one who lives to fight another day. If you die you throw away the lives of everyone you could have saved. I outlived my whole team and went on to kill more murderers than anyone else in my generation. If I would have fought to the bitter end when Beacon fell that wouldn't have happened and everyone I have saved would have been forfeited."

"You fought in the battle of Beacon's fall? You attended school here and had a team?" She asked in a little surprise. Was she just feigning surprise and seeing into the future? I wasn't sure. I couldn't be.

"I did once. They're all dead now. I'm the only survivor because I ran away from those battles I knew I couldn't win. I also got lucky more than my fair share of times though I wouldn't say that I'm particularly fortunate."

"What was your team like?"

"There was my partner: Pyrrha. She was lacking confidence in some ways but she was so firm in others. She was the first person to really believe in me and help me to be where I am today. I would be dead if not for her kindness. She was nearly unbeatable in our classes, not unlike yourself. There was Ren who was quiet and an excellent chef. He always had something meaningful to say. Nora talked enough for the both of them. She was a chatter box but she had a peculiar wisdom. She could read between the lines where others couldn't. Let yourself be yourself with your team. Trust them a little. You may find yourself willing to share the details of your power with them. You may not. In the end they can be your family if you let them. Don't graduate with regrets. You're too young for that."

"What about you? Do you have regrets?"

"Too many to count. I've killed a lot of people. Some of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and I had the power to destroy them so I did. You will have that power as well as you develop your abilities and semblance. You have enormous potential. You should learn from my mistakes and be better than me. There have been dark days in my life that I regret now. Days I wished never happened. But they did. There's nothing I can do about it now but desperately try and share the little wisdom I have with you and your peers. Let yourself make friends. And not just with your own team. You still have time to be a child."

"I'm making friends well. My power helps. Team RYPP and my own team are fairly close. So far I'm settling into Beacon nicely. But I just can't figure out a way to beat you. It's like a chip in my mind nagging at me."

"Train hard and one day you'll catch up to me and perhaps even surpass me. Your semblance is incredibly powerful. You have time to catch up. Don't rush yourself and enjoy the days that come. I want to set up a weekly time to train with you to help you out. Is that alright with you?" I asked.

"It is. And thank you Professor. Your insights are more than helpful."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was getting ready to pack it in for the day when there came another knock at my door. I didn't have another appointment so I wasn't sure who it was but I called out for them to come in anyways.

It was Rosé that opened the door and stepped inside.

"Miss Gainsborough…"

She pouted at me for a moment and reached down and scratched the dog's belly. The animals got excited to see her. They were good friends. It started panting and rubbing its body against her legs in enjoyment. She patted its side as it rubbed against her waist.

"You don't have to address me so formally when we're alone, _Professor Strife_."

"Would you prefer that I call you princess? Your highness?"

She glowered at me and I chuckled a little.

"How are you settling into Beacon? We haven't had a chance to talk since before term started," I went on headless of her glare. She looked away for a moment and unfurrowed her brow in quiet contemplation.

"My team is fine. My partner is a competitive bitch but she's my competitive bitch. We get along pretty well after the first day of classes. Peach says it's because we were so similar that we were fighting in the first place. Peach is funny but a little over the top sometimes. She's confident in herself and her body and Yuma is shy and a bit self conscious but she talks enough. She isn't quiet like you might expect from someone so nervous. We get along well with Team CMAD. I have real friends who don't really care about my position beyond teasing me for the first time. It's nice. It's what I had hoped for when I wanted to come to Beacon."

I reclined in my seat and listened to her talk. We weren't just Professor and Student. We were friends of a sort. There had been a time where she kept me in check. That had been good for me. Now the school kept me under its thumb and that's where I remained. I didn't take a break from it. I tried to be patient but I was dying and I still hadn't told Rosé. I sighed. I really ought to tell her.

"Rosé…" I started and then trailed off. She looked at me curiously and patiently for me to finish. "Rosé, I'm still dying," I managed it on my second attempt.

"What?"

"I'm degenerating. It's a birth defect. I don't know how long I have."

"We can get you help."

"The only one who can maybe help me is Merlot. And I don't trust him. That's a no go. I'm sorry but you deserve to know. I will die from this decay if something else doesn't get me before then."

She was silent and staring at me for a long time. Too long. I sat patiently and waited as a few minutes ticked by on a digital clock above our heads.

"Is there nothing to be done?"

"No. Nothing. I had some scientists look me over in Atlas and this thing will kill me. I could have a few more years but I bleed internally. I have had seizures though that might be from something else. The outlook is bad. But you deserved to know. We are friends of a sort."

"Of a sort," she repeated dumbly. She looked pretty out of it - as though I pulled the carpet out from underneath her. She scratched the dog mutely while staring off into space next to my head. "But you don't know how long. You could have five or ten years."

"It's possible… I don't know what you're thinking but I feel it's more likely that my time is on the shorter end of that yardstick."

"Is that why you went after Merlot? To save yourself?"

"Not really. Like I said I can't trust him. That's a serious problem before I would let him operate on me or inject me with something. He is likely to try and kill me even faster. The plan is still to find him and destroy him. He has to be stopped and his experiments need to have an end put to them."

It all came rushing back at once. Me killing Ren and Nora. I dropped my pen on my desk and rubbed my forehead.

"You don't deserve that. I refuse to accept it. I won't let you fade away."

"Rosé, you know some of the awful shit I've done. This is karma." I felt like an ocean as still as a lake. I reached into myself and looked deep within. There was Mother built up behind enormous walls of solid rock. Behind that she hid herself and my sisters from my fear which threatened to consume us all. It was a double edged razor that bit both ways. It went up the tree to the roots and trunk where my Mother resided.

"It can't be. I'll find a way to help you. Have a little faith."

"Don't get your hopes up. Enjoy the time you have left with me instead. No one will listen to your prayers. They will go unanswered and I will die all the same."

"Stop saying that, Cloud. You can make it through this."

"Be reasonable, I will die. I will. You should prepare yourself for that eventuality."

"This isn't how I wanted this conversation to go…" she murmured. "Not at all. I didn't want this. I like how much you trust me but couldn't there have been something else?"

She was in the bargaining phase. She was a little in denial as well. She wanted to find a way to save me. It was impossible, however. That had burned Ruby too. She also wanted a way to save me. From my death and from Mother. She never found it though. That didn't stop her from trying. I sighed a little at the thought of Ruby. I missed kissing her. The memory brought me back to days out in the Anima countryside when it was just the two of us. Like a cell dividing we were split up and I had no idea for how long.

I missed the way she would pull me down towards her gently yet insistent. She had wanted me. I could feel it in her movement. I wonder if she desired me still. Even after everything I had done. I found this happened all the time.

If she really knew what I was like wouldn't she be disgusted. Rosé sort of knew and I liked to believe she wasn't repulsed. Her presence here proved the contrary. She sought me out for an evening chat and not as her Professor.

Little Ruby Rose… I missed her tiny form. It had been months since I had seen her. I've lost her. I've lost her. I've lost her. That raked at me. I found that this happened all the time. I would think about one of the two of them and how they probably shouldn't love me and I would get depressed. Weiss was smart. She should be able to see through my bullshit and spot the fool's gold inside. But she never did. She believed that I was something genuine. And from their letter they missed me. They really missed me. That was a struggle to believe. They had each other. What did they need me for? They didn't really. Surely they would realize that at some point. They didn't need me. It hurt me to think it but it was the truth. What should they want me for? Did they miss my body the way I missed theirs? But from their letter they did. They wanted me back with them. They didn't want me to feel alone. I didn't know what to think.

In some aspects of my life I was incredibly unlucky. I mean, look at my team. But I had two beautiful girls- no, women who loved me. That was heart stopping and jaw dropping. It was a great source of comfort to me at the same time it gave me panic attacks. Who wouldn't panic a little? I certainly would and was. I had twice as many people to disappoint as a regular man. Plus there had been whatever I had with Pyrrha. Walks through Vale with just the two of us had new meaning in the context of that final kiss. What was she to me? What would she have been? I wanted to know. Frankly, I deserved to know. I had put Cinder in the dirt but I still had no closure where Pyrrha was concerned.

"So what? You're resolved to die?" Rosé asked me.

"No. I want to live. I want my dreams." I wanted Ruby's family. I wanted that. "But there is no sense in deluding myself. And no sense in you lying to yourself either. You have to come to terms with the fact that I will one day be gone."

Rosé chewed her lip and wouldn't look at me. Red walked excitedly up to her but she ignored it, she was so deep in thought.

"There has to be something I can do…" she trailed off.

"Why?" I asked. "Why is it so hard to accept that nothing can be done? Five, ten years is the best I can hope for. And I don't want it to kill me. That seems like a horrible way to go. I'd rather-"

"Be ripped apart by monsters or men?" She demanded with some heat.

"Yeah. Actually. I'd rather have that than decompose alive. That sounds awful. At least with monsters or men it'll be fast and probably less painful. Can you really blame me?"

She was silent for a long time. "This isn't over," she said at length. "I'm not giving you up just like that."

"You're a fighter. I wish that you could let me go. You're not the only one struggling to give me up but it'd be better for you that way."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	136. Living Legacy III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I had a routine at Beacon. It was good for me. First thing in the morning I ran the dog. Red needed the exercise and I was his caretaker. It was healthy for me too but it wasn't the point. Then I lifted weights at the fine gymnasium at the school. I was up early enough that nobody else was there. It was peaceful. I even had time to shower and all that jazz.

Sleep was my enemy, however.

I was up at four and in bed at ten. The less time I spent sleeping the less time my mind was vulnerable. As a result I was fairly tired come the end of the day. But I kept up the routine and slept as little as possible. Sleep was when I got got. It was to be avoided as much as humanly possible. She attacked my subconscious mind while I was sleeping. I dreaded that. This worked out fine for my teaching schedule. I was up early enough to work with any early risers who needed my attention and I was up late enough to work with anybody during those time slots too. Few people had taken me up on my offer of private tutoring but I wanted to be open and available if that should change.

I had four two hour blocks of classes that I taught every single day. One for each year of students. They went by too fast. I hardly had the time to set up matches and grade them. It was difficult. I had to spend an extra hour at the end of the day just grading the students and setting up the class standings.

It was only two weeks into term and I really couldn't see my job getting easier from here. There would be missions eventually. I would have to do even more. I couldn't really say that I regretted it, but it was a lot of work.

I wrote a letter to Ruby and Weiss telling them I took on a teaching position at Beacon. I think that they'll be pleased. If nothing else it was a safe job for a hunter - the safest, in fact. I expected the satellite to launch any day now unless Robin Hill got in the way some more. But she was just a nuisance and would only delay the project, not shut it down. I was sure the satellite would be on its way with Atlas support soon. That would render my letter obsolete but I sent it off anyways. I told them about my new responsibilities and some of the trials I faced. I assured them I had tried nothing offensive against my Mother. I worked hard on my defense instead.

I entered the teacher's lounge before anyone else but Goodwitch. I still couldn't muster the strength to call by her first name. It felt too weird to put us on the same level though I managed it with my other colleagues. I scratched my dog's head as it followed me into the lounge. I said good morning to Goodwitch and I took a seat to begin to plan today's matches. It didn't take me long so I brewed some coffee and sat back in quiet contemplation with the warm cup and my dog's head in my lap.

"Cloud, how are you finding your work here at Beacon? We haven't had the chance to talk amongst the chaos that begins every year." She took a seat at the table a few spots down. She was talking as my employer, just checking up on things but I could still probably be honest. She had done this job too.

"It's hard. It's a lot of work. Especially finding the time to work with anyone else beyond the classes in private lessons. It's difficult being a teacher. In a lot of ways I feel like a student still. Maybe I should be."

My dog let out a little sigh and turned in a circle to lay down.

"I think it's very noble of you to work extra hours with anyone who comes to you. Gods only know how you find the time."

"Not many students have come to me. But if I save just one more life it'll probably be worth it. It isn't easy. I've confessed that much but I'm sure you already know that. You did this for years as well. And I have to live with knowledge that I'm sending most of them off to die. The faces I see will pass on. That's hard to stomach. Sometimes I can't stand it and I want to tell them to quit and to save themselves. But I can't do that either. It's a lot all at once all the time."

"And so you have discovered the hardest part of the job. Usually it takes a little longer for someone to see it. We are preparing them to fight for their lives. Sometimes they will lose and each year each class will shrink and dwindle."

"Yikes," I mumbled. I took a drink of coffee. "I don't think I'll be able to handle that. You should keep looking for someone to replace me."

"Should I have been looking for someone to replace you?"

"I'm dying. I told you that. It's a congenital defect or at least that's what I thought it was. It isn't a defect. My father designed me with it intentionally. I don't know how long I have." I smirked. "I'm going to join that group of disappearing students. I'm sorry to have to tell you."

"I recall… well, I wish for your good health. Is a recovery possible?" She asked. She leaned her head on hand and she set her elbow on the table. She looked at me from over her glasses.

"Probably not. The outlook is bleak. If something else doesn't kill me I'll die from my own degeneration. I'm in a bad way."

"Perhaps our medical team could examine you."

"I got looked over by some eggheads in Atlas. Nothing for it I'm afraid. That's how I left team RWBY."

"And how is your relationship with team RWBY? Did you leave on good terms?"

"It's complicated. Things got… confusing before the end. And I think so. I write them letters. And the General wants to get communication back up which would mean I would get to talk to them again directly. That would be nice. I can't speak to their emotions. I want the best for them. I'm not sure that's me."

"I think you may be a bit hard on yourself. You've done well so far. You have gotten further than I thought you would."

"You probably thought I was going to die at the first opportunity. I deserved that lack of faith." She gave me a slightly guilty look that said it all. "I'm nothing like Pyrrha and nothing like what she would have wanted for me."

"Slightly harsh, again. You don't have anything to live up to and seem to be doing your best. At least as far as your job is concerned."

"It's not enough. They'll still die. You know what I mean?"

"Yes I do. You will have the trip to Forever Fall soon. There will be danger. Students have gotten hurt before. All you can do is set up a safe zone for them to retreat to. You cannot be with them at all times. It is our role in this as their teachers to be able to watch and not to interfere. At some point they will succeed or fail on their own merits. Just as at some point they will live or die."

"How am I supposed to live with so much regret? That's all that I struggle with currently. You can document that other than that I'm doing fine. Things are alright as far as I am concerned and Beacon has been good for me so far."

"I see. You're settling in just fine? No complaints?"

"My room and office are more spacious than I need. I have hot showers every morning. My diet is fine and I get plenty of exercise. My life is not so bad."

"But you are dying."

"I am indeed. There's not a thing I can do about it though. I just have to live with it. Everybody has to die. Mine is just coming up sooner than you might think. I have to pack my life with as much good as I can manage before that point. That's really why I'm doing this job. That's really why it's good for me. Do you understand me?"

"I think I do. It's not unlike my own motivations for teaching. Back when I was a teacher, of course. Now I have different responsibilities such as dealing with the council and other officials. But I take them on with that same spirit. It's for other people that I do what I do."

"I'm not so selfless."

"No? Could have fooled me."

"I must have. I'm teaching for selfish reasons. It's what I want to do. And it's because I want them to survive. I'm greedy and it's all about my desires."

"I think we shall have to agree to disagree. And at any rate I must be off. And if I'm not mistaken you'll have your first set of classes soon."

"Until next time, headmistress."

"It's Glynda."

"That's too much for me, I'm afraid. I would struggle to put us on the same level and see eye to eye."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

My fist class of the day was with the third years. I was barely their senior and I wasn't in one interpretation. I did have experience over them, however. I had seen some shit and done some stuff. I wouldn't recommend it.

"Braun and Aka. You two are up first." I made my voice heard up at the third year class.

"I don't get it. Why do we always have to fight our partners?" Chrome's voice boomed loud enough that I heard it. The crown prince had trouble with my authority. He spoke up frequently.

"If you have a problem with my teaching style please take it up with me directly, Mr. Gainsborough."

"Okay. Why do we have to be taught by someone barely older than us?"

"I seem to recall kicking your teeth in when we scrapped at the Valean tournament. You can't hold a candle to me. I have a great deal of real combat experience. Something that you as a student lack. That's why I am here despite my age."

"You caught me by surprise. That trick won't work twice. If we were to fight again I'd kick your ass."

"Detention, Mr. Gainsborough. I won't be spoken back to like that. Bring your gear and we'll go a couple of rounds at the end of the day. We shall see how well you fair against someone just a few scant years older than you indeed. It will be a good and humbling experience for you but for now shut up and watch the match. Is that clear enough for you?"

Chrome reclined with a cocky grin and his arms folded. It wasn't the first time the boy had tried to undermine me in class but it was the first time I felt I could actually give him detention. I was going to enjoy this evening when I beat him to a pulp over and over again. Perhaps I would be able to force him to respect me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Won't it be embarrassing when I beat you, Professor?" Chrome asked as he stepped into the ring with me.

I drew my broadsword.

"Prepare yourself," I murmured.

He pulled his enormous spear from his back in his white and silver tunic and dark grey pants. He had the same heart shaped face and bright blue eyes as Rosé did but his hair was a blue-ish silver.

"Ready?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Then let us begin."

I stood in place and flexed to begin charging my semblance. He just watched me curiously and didn't approach. His mistake. I activated my semblance and I took the fight to him.

I charged him and he tried to thrust his spear at me but I dived over it easily with my flight. Then I swung horizontally with my blade and hit him like a locomotive. I flattened him to the floor hard. Then I stepped in and cross-slashed his body where he lay on the ground and I caught him in the five hit attack.

I let him sail through the air and stood back to charge my semblance.

He looked up to see me charging with wisps of golden light around my body.

"That's your semblance, then. That powerful attack. But you have to charge it."

"I do. And you had better stop me."

"But if I approach you then I'm just playing your game," he cut in.

"And if you don't approach me you're still playing my game."

"So no matter what I'm playing into your hands. That seems unfair."

"That's not my problem. You had better come up with something."

He sprinted at me and I stood still until the last second and I flung my body to the side to dodge his thrust. Then he swung his spear around his body in a wide semicircle. I blocked it, stepped inside slightly and swung my sword so that the edge bit into his aura in a tremendous, narrow diagonal downward swing. I put my hips into the motion and knocked him back with a satisfying sound. Then I side-flipped and brought my blade from low to high and swung it behind my body. I clipped him in the chest. He stumbled back and I paused to charge my semblance once again.

"What if I don't want to approach?" He asked me.

"I'll take the fight to you as soon as my semblance is charged. See if you can stop me then," I informed him.

He swung his spear in a mighty slash that I blocked. I tried to step in but was debited by a stab of his polearm. He kept me at bay so I stepped back and continued to charge.

"I don't need my semblance to beat you," I told him. "But it helps. You had better find a way to work around my power."

He came at me once more. I blade-beamed at him and it hit him in the chest.

He shook it off and came through it in a giant thrust. All I had to do was punish his approach options and wait for Limit Break and I would have this in the bag. I jumped and as I fell I swung upwards in a blow that caught him in the chest. It popped him into the air. I hit him with another upwards swing and juggled him. I flew quickly above him and stabbed my sword downwards and spiked him hard back into the floor. I came flying at him and with my back to him swung my sword diagonally upwards and across my body behind me. He blocked it but he had to grit his teeth from the force of it. I jumped again, back-flipping towards him like I was going to hit him with a falling aerial and instead I whipped around and caught him in a triple swing that I was fond of.

My semblance activated and I came at him blindingly fast.

I slashed my blade in a quick 'x' and he blocked both hits. I jumped over him and swung my blade downward on him in a massive two handed attack. He blocked it but I saw it rattle him. I was shaking him up and I had strength to spare. With one hand I lowered my blade down towards him and he struggled against my strength with both of his hands quivering behind his spear.

"You still have so much to learn about fighting. If you don't take this seriously you'll die. You do get that don't you? Aura and a weapon don't make you invincible."

"I have a semblance…" he managed as I lowered my blade onto him easily. In the elevated state I was strong enough to bench press train cars and I could probably break one hundred twenty kilometers per hour when I flew. Nowhere near as fast as Ruby with her sound breaking speed but she didn't get close to my strength.

"Well then you had better use it."

His body turned a silvery purple. He changed states and slammed me with his shoulder. It knocked me on my back for a moment but I was levitating to my feet in a heartbeat. He came charging at me with his body glowing slightly in silvery shades of purple. I deflected his spear to the side and made to closeline him with my sword but my weapon just bounced off of him.

I flew back twenty feet in less than a half second. I took actual slow steps on the ground, dragging my massive blade behind me.

"Fight me!" Chrome demanded.

"You can't keep what you're doing up forever. I should simply wait. Your super strength will wear off and I can beat you. I've seen you use this power in class. You're running out of time."

Then he suddenly switched gears and it was a light blue and silver aura that covered him. He sprinted at me and was exceptionally fast. I'd seen him enter this mode as well. It made him much faster but still not as fast as I was with Limit Breaker active.

I dodged his swing easily. He turned it into a thrust and I parried it.

He jumped and swept his spear around his body in an enormous circle. I blocked it, stepped inside and lit him up with a gentle cross-slash.

On the last terrific blow I knocked his aura to absent. I flew up and over to him and picked him up by the collar and swung him into the air. I shook him.

"You think you're hot shit and that's going to get you killed. Pay attention in my class and get the most out of it or you will die. I don't want you challenging my abilities or my teaching style anymore. Is that understood? Rest up. We're going to go again and again."

I shook his whole body with each word. He tried to reach out and grab a hold of my arm to stabilize himself or push me away but my grip was too firm.

"Get your act together," I ordered. I tossed him to the floor where he lay panting and out of sorts.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	137. Living Legacy IV

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

We took an airship out to forever fall. I managed to hold my stomach though I did turn a little green from the motion sickness. It seems that no matter how powerful I got as a huntsman a moving vehicle would always be my bane. It was frankly embarrassing. Huntsmen like myself don't get motion sick. That's not a thing. Except I totally did.

I had my dog with me and my weapon on my back. I stepped out of the craft into the gorgeous forever fall forest. Yellow and orange leaves fluttered from the trees which had plenty to spare. The gnarled grey and black trunks and branches of the trees reminded one a little of Grimm. And the red leaves emphasized this, they were as bright as a Grimm's insides.

"All right students: we're outside the walls - we're in danger. Keep on your toes and collect plenty of sap. Aside from that, have fun," I broadcasted my voice.

I was allergic to the stuff myself but it was supposed to be delicious. I just couldn't ever try any. Some things were like that though. They were delectable but not ever for me. It was bullshit but it was life sometimes.

I watched the teams spread out and I found a great grey rock to rest against while I waited. My dog started sniffing around and came up beside me. It sat and gave me a pointed look.

"What?" I asked the dog. Red didn't respond; it just kept giving me this look. Like: is this all? We came out here to lean against a rock?

"It's important for the students to have a safe zone to retreat to. Don't look at me like that."

The animal turned round and round for a moment before laying down in the orange grass.

It was scenic out here.

"Hey Prof?" I looked up to see Peach from team RYPP. She took a sip of the crimson sap from a jar and then she offered me that same jar. "Want to try some? It's really good." Behind her was the rest of her team and team CMAD.

I shifted and squeezed the long red handle of my blade behind me for reassurance. I ran a hand through my spiky hair. I strode across the clearing towards her and gave the jar a gentle push away from me with the tips of my fingers on my left hand.

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm allergic to it. I found out during my first trip out here as a freshman at Beacon, actually."

"Aw," she whined.

"Ooh. Rejection," Pine called out. "Better luck next time, Peach."

"I'll crack you like an egg at some point Professor," the pink eyed brawler snapped her fingers to emphasize her point.

I laughed a little. "Sure you will. You'll find I'm hard to crack."

"You're always so bold… I don't know how you do it," Yuma told Peach as she walked back to her team.

"It's easy. Nothing even happened anyways. What's all the fuss?"

"You know what the fuss is. Don't play dumb," Rosé cut across.

"We're out here making moves. No big deal," Peach went on.

"No big deal? Do you really think that?" Rosé asked.

"Gotta try, don't I?" Peach tagged.

"Professor, what was your trip to forever fall like when you were a student?" Yuma asked me.

"My trip? I almost died. There was an Ursa. I killed it but it easily could have gone the other way. I was talentless back then."

"It's hard to imagine you being weak," Rosé said.

"Well I was once. Super weak. Weaker than any one of you are now. I only really came into my power after Beacon fell."

They looked at me sort of disbelievingly. I'm not sure why. Was it really so hard to imagine that I had been so frail? It must have been because Daisy shook her head a little and Crystal's eyes were wide like she couldn't possibly see it amongst all the things she looked at.

"Will you ladies and gentlemen take my dog with you?" I called out.

"Sure," Rosé agreed. "Come on Red. Let's go, boy." My dog left with a single backwards glance towards me. Then he happily followed Rosé into the forest and I was left with my rock. Just my rock and me.

I reclined with my arms crossed. My gauntlets _rang_ together a little as I folded my hands beneath one another. I sighed. Teaching could be boring at times but boring wasn't a bad thing per se. It beat dying or almost dying. That was a plus. I waited and listened to the students wander from my perspective point. Birds chirped and flew through the forest and small animals crawled about and fled before the students in their teams.

I was tired. My regimented routine left me exhausted by its very nature. I felt my eyes close and let my other senses extend outwards away from me. My sixth sense for danger and aura and my Mother given seventh for Grimm spread out from me and merged. I listened to the chatter of the students as my hearing reached out and I smelled the fresh forest and the decay of leaves.

Nothing called out at me and when one team encountered Grimm they would destroy it. There were only small fish near here. Nothing that the students couldn't take care of. I could almost fall asleep and I lingered in the sun against my rock on the precipice of unconsciousness. I teetered without falling in and my head spun but it was a pleasant sensation. I felt my jaw relax as the sunlight fell on my skin and warmed my cheeks.

Then I felt a grating against my senses of something bigger. I opened my eyes and gazed out in the direction I felt the dangerous Grimm in and my sixth and seventh senses overlapped a little. It was probably just an Ursa and was nothing that the students working in teams couldn't handle. Still I should take care of it. It was a shade too close to where the students should feel comfortable retreating to.

I gathered my blade from my back and levitated in that direction. I floated away from the ship and slowed down as I approached the beast and I took actual steps at a speedy walk that slowed even more to a steady gait. I marched into the clearing where the beast lumbered. A great bear with white bony plates. It reacted a little to the sight of me. Had it sensed me as I had felt it? Was it shocked to find me more human than Grimm?

I strode forward and the monster charged at me with enormous steps. I lowered my blade and took off in an upwards sweeping leap. Pulling upwards, I divided the beast in two easily. Such monsters had been a match for me when I had last been here. Now they were nothing. I didn't need my Limit Break attacks to deal with them, let alone the terrifying Omni-slash which had floored Raven Branwen full aura and all. That was my ace in the hole. The fact was that I just rarely needed it. I had my cross-slash and the octa-slash. Realistically as far as raw damage output I didn't strictly need more than that unless I needed to kill someone fast. Recently I hadn't done much killing. Maybe I was turning over a new leaf.

I retreated back through the woods back to my rock nice and slowly. I pushed branches out of my way with my right hand and put my sword back in its harness. The rock was patiently waiting for me where I had left it - dull grey and with flecks of iron to it. It stood out harshly in the bright and colorful forest. For a moment I empathized with it. I had always had dark and dull colors compared to my vibrant companions. Team RWBY and the other members of team JNPR were so bright in the clothes they wore. I had black and grey pants with thick heavy dark boots and a black cape. My harness was grey along with my gauntlets. My deep blue shirt was the brightest thing on my person and it was a dark blue a few shades less bright than my eyes. I suppose there was my bronze and white sword but even that seemed so dull compared to something like Miló or Akouó. Odd considering they had been forged together. Crocea Mors was mostly white with a few accents across the blade. It was the shield that was half bronze. Together, when I swept the blade about, it was a white and bronze arc.

So much had changed since I was last in this forest. I was not who I once was. I was still a scared person but I wasn't the weak boy I had been. I had killed and maimed and tortured. I slew monsters now. I had become a hero a little. Not the way I had wanted but wishes like those never came true like you expect. If they came true at all they came with a double edged twist. My relationship with Weiss was like that. It had come true but not at all how I expected. I sighed a little and recalled resting my head on her lap and I let my fingers drift to my lips as I remembered dozens of soft kisses against her full pink pouting mouth. Atlas had been a time of broadening experiences. I would never forget it. How could I? Such memories gave me strength. They were real amongst a myriad of fake, dream-like recollections. Holding Weiss's tiny form in my hands and picking her up to kiss me, hunting hungrily for her lower lip and running my tongue against the opening of her mouth ever so softly, what more could I have asked for as a freshman at Beacon when I had pursued her? In the end I did get more. More than I ever could have reasonably dreamed I would. It just cost a great deal for me to get there, in Atlas. My whole team and whatever Pyrrha was to me. I didn't know what that was still. I didn't get to know. I would never know, could never know. That was just one of my curses. And it made me want to swear angrily but there was nothing to direct my rage at. It was impotent. I was helpless.

A crimson leaf fell from a tree above me and the wind rocked it back and forth as it fluttered to the ground. I glared at it as though it was the leaf's fault I never got any closure with Pyrrha. Gods, she haunted me. Would I ever be good enough? I was a powerful huntsman but I still felt so unbelievably weak. All the strength in the world gave me nothing, no clarity.

I sat down against my rock.

I grimaced and rubbed my face hard in my hands.

I felt a lurching pain near my heart in my chest but I ignored it. There was nothing to be done. I let the pestering pangs of pain ping purposelessly apropos the inside of my skull. This fine famine I had been given - the agony was blissful. My face twitched as I tried to smile vainly. It was no less than what I deserved. There were things I recollected dimly. My torment, now observed, should vanish. It was a certain throbbing ecstasy.

Gods above, what have I become? I had transformed into a powerful huntsman but it cost me nearly everything. I got Weiss but it took Pyrrha's death for me to get there. And now I lay dying with a thousand things to do before I bit it. I had so much to do and so little time and I was wasting it. Where were the people who loved me? I had run from them. How could I look them in the eye ever again. All my wretched little wants plagued me. Had I done anything good at all? Or was it about to collapse in on me as it had so many times before. My cheek quivered as I frowned harshly. What was I doing? Being around kids… I was a hazard. It was selfish of me and nothing more. I wanted to do some good and I was willing to risk it all on it. I felt like I was coming down all at once off of some enormous long lasting high. I had smoked in the morning before my run and maybe I was coming off of that. I wanted to smoke again. I was a druggy. And here I was around children as an example of what to be. I wasn't a good example of healthy coping mechanisms. Or really anything in general except perhaps as a machine for killing. I was really good at that. But that was all.

I pinched the bridge of my nose hard with my right hand and grimaced.

"Cloud?" I looked up from where I sat with my left leg extended and my right leg bent. I rested my right elbow on my knee. My left palm was down in the grass. I glanced up to see Rosé. I know I wasn't supposed to have favorite students but I totally did. Team RYPP and team CMAD were sort of it. I genuinely liked them and there was certainly something familiar about them. The ironies were not lost on me.

"It's Professor Strife, Miss Gainsborough. At least in public. Don't put me in a corner and make me into the bad guy."

"It's a charade, though," she pointed out. "We're on a first name basis, you and I."

"But it's one you and I must observe," I reprimanded gently. "What did you need?"

"You look tired…"

"I am tired. I'm always tired. Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No, it's about the future. You're not going to stay a teacher forever. Are you."

"No… probably just this one year. Then I'm off. I have things I have to do."

"What will you do?"

"I'll go to Vacuo. Finish my business with Merlot. Then I'm not sure. There are other enemies I have as well - people who won't let me rest just yet. I have to take care of them, one way or another."

"Would you take me with you?"

"Don't you want to stay here? I thought you were settling well into your team. You don't want to hang around a dusty old hunter like me."

"You're always like that. Would you ever compete in tournaments? You'd do very well."

I snorted. "Yeah. I'd do pretty well. Might accidentally kill the competition if I got serious. It's not for me. When I fight for real I fight to kill and that's pretty much that. It's not a hobby for me. Not like it was for my partner, Pyrrha."

"Were you close to her?"

I exhaled hard. How the fuck was I supposed to answer that question? Yes? No? I might have been in love with her and never knew it until she kissed me then went off and died? She loved me but I never knew it until it was too late? What the hell? And all because I was a fucking moron. I should have known but I was so naive. I still probably was. Girls made little sense to me but they evidently liked me. How many other girls liked me besides the three I knew about? I had no fucking idea. It was complex enough without another one. What was I supposed to say? I let my right arm hang down and looked up at Rosé out of the corner of my eye.

"It was complicated," I decided after a long pause.

"That's your answer to a lot of things."

"A lot of shit in my life is complicated. I don't know what to tell you. Maybe my partner and I were involved but I had no idea until it was far too late. Then she died. It was complicated. Why? Are you having problems with your partner?"

"No. My partner is great but you'll never hear me say it to her face. Her ego doesn't need it. We get along pretty well and have a lot in common. I trust her. I was just curious about you."

"Well don't be. I try my hardest to not be interesting. Life just has a way of mucking everything up."

"You don't think you're interesting?" She asked.

"I really don't want to be," I winced. The problem was that I probably was. My life was full of twisted ironies.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	138. Kisaragi II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**(Yuma PoV)**

I wasn't much for the big city. I had lived most of life in a tiny village. Give me a break. My partner on the other hand was big on the large city amenities. Bars and clubs and booze and maybe other drugs. And she dragged me and the rest of the team along with her down to Vale on Saturday. It didn't take much convincing to get Pine on board and from there it snowballed until it was a team outing that I couldn't just opt out of.

Pine was wearing her elegant dress which showed off her enormous angel wings. She looked good in white with the sash of red. My own partner was wearing a slitted black dress with yellow highlights. Rosé, our leader, was in a crimson skirt with white tassels, she hadn't forgone her sword. Pine as well had her weapons with her on her back and Peach was never unarmed. I had been forced, rather against my will, to leave my combat clothes behind and wear my best dress which was just a small purple skirt and top. It so wasn't me. I felt embarrassed enough in our uniforms.

"Let's get it ladies. We can run this town," my partner grinned.

"Where to first?" Pine tossed her long green hair back behind her.

"This town is full of clubs and up first is Junior's. It's supposed to be the hottest place in town and has been for years."

"Crime?" Rosé asked.

"Probably," Peach kept grinning. At least she was having a good time. "Junior himself is supposed to be a big time information broker."

"What does that mean? You can make a living selling information? What kind of information is even worth something?" I wondered.

"I can think of some things. Details on powerful semblances maybe. That sort of thing," Rosé pulled her hair back with both hands. "Damn, I wish the Prof could see me in this thing."

I didn't want the Professor to see me in my outfit. I felt like a little kid. Weren't our uniforms exposing enough? The skirt I was wearing was fairly short. As was Rosé's.

"And we're getting involved in this whole thing?" I went on.

"We're just going dancing and drinking. It's no big deal," Pine countered.

"Should we have someone be designated as sober?" I worried some more.

"We're four powerful huntresses. We'll be safe," Peach disagreed. "We won't force you to drink. It's supposed to be fun."

Right. Fun. I tried to imagine it for a minute and struggled.

"I'm not much of a drinker. I can stay sober if it will make you feel safer, Yuma," Rosé continued to pull her long silver pink hair back into a ponytail.

"Is there a story to that?" Pine asked.

"The Professor took me drinking once while I was training under him. I didn't much enjoy it and unfortunately he didn't try anything. It turned into a waste of time."

"Bold of you, sis," Peach laughed. "I mean good gods did you want him to fondle you?"

"I wouldn't say no," Rosé sing-songed with a sly smile.

"You have got it bad," Pine pointed out.

"Kinda. What? What's wrong with wanting a real man to touch me? I bet he knows how to do it too."

I turned red furiously. How could she be so bold?

"Aw you're making Yuma blush. Don't worry, the secret of your little crush is safe with us," Peach teased me.

"I'm not crushing on the Professor. Shut up," I snapped.

"Glad to hear it," Rosé murmured as she finished putting her hair up.

"Can't stand a little competition?" Peach asked.

"Am I supposed to say the more the merrier?" Rosé fired back. "I have dibs."

"Girlfriend, I bet I can get a kiss out of him before you."

"Yeah, right. He and I have history."

"I'm surrounded by infatuated idiots. Are we going to party or not?" Pine stretched out one of her enormous wings. She flexed the muscles flapping one time and let it fold neatly on her back again.

"Yeah. We are. Hold your horses. I'm establishing dominance," Peach put a hand on her hip.

"Over me? Please," Rosé fired back in what was mostly a good natured fashion.

"Are you really not going to drink?" Pine asked.

"What do you think, Yuma? There will always be another time."

"No you can. It was just a thought," I said.

We marched out of the dorm and into the common areas. The boys of team CMAD were out playing cards at a table and they watched us go by. They even turned their heads to see us go. I flushed a little and reminded myself that compared to Pine and Peach they probably weren't looking at me.

Pine let out her ringing laugh at the boys once we left them behind and descended the stairs to the first floor.

"Did you see Mars's face?" Rosé giggled along with Pine.

"It's not nice to laugh at them," I pointed out. We were huntresses. We were supernaturally beautiful. The boys had had no chance.

We marched through the gardens and walkways out to the shuttle. I prepared myself. I got airsick. I didn't want to throw up on my only set of nice clothes before the night had even really begun.

We took the shuttle across to Vale and made our way through the dense city streets. Before I had just passed through and over the giant city. Same with Mistral. This was my first time down in such a large locale. It was fairly intimidating with the holographic street lights and the busy intersections even at night. Peach led the way and I followed close beside her. Not because I was scared or anything. I just wanted to be close to her. I breathed deeply to calm myself but it was hardly working.

At least I wasn't alone. I walked quietly while Pine and Rosé chatted behind us. We got looks from people on the street. It made me uncomfortable a little and I had to resist hyperventilating. Gods, why couldn't I be like Peach and relax. She looked so smooth inside. With eyeballs on her as probably the prettiest one she was so at ease.

It was probably her or Pine in their flowing dresses. Pine looked like a total angel-girl. And that wasn't a dig at Rosé who had a cute heart shaped face and bright blue eyes. That made me the ugly one. Not that I was bad looking. I just didn't stand out compared to my team. I knew that. They were just so beautiful and taller than me and I had dark hair and plain brown eyes. I just didn't peacock like the others in my purple skirt. Pine had just the most beautiful green eyes and long green hair where mine was short and black. Peach glowed with blonde hair and her vibrant pink eyes. I just had the short stick.

We came up on a three story club and we could feel the music from outside of the glass building with strobing lights. There was a line to get in with an enormous bouncer at the lead. We waited but only a little while. We were good looking girls and rules bent before us. We were let in ahead of a group of guys who must have been waiting for thirty minutes. That was nice. It gave my ego a little boost to be let in like that. Pine and Rosé lost it a little and broke down laughing. They weren't even drunk yet and they were red faced. The music rocked me on my feet and there was a great glass dance floor with several pillars of crystal that flashed under the flashing lights.

Around the outside of the paneled dance floor there was a bar and tables. I stuck close by Peach nervously. People moved and waved their arms out on the floor and I followed Peach to the bar. She ordered a cocktail for both of us and I pulled the hem of my skirt down and sipped the creamy sugary drink. It was good despite the alcohol and I found myself having downed half of it in just a moment.

"Woah, slow down there, Yuma. We have the whole night ahead of us," Peach gently pulled my drink away from my lips.

"It tastes-s s-so good." My voice came out a little slurred and it felt like I was talking from the long end of a tunnel as a heady dizziness settled on to the inside of my skull. "Woah," I managed, blinking quickly.

Rosé and Pine came laughing up to Peach and I with drinks of their own in their hands. I smiled and for the first time that evening I felt relaxed and I didn't feel self conscious about the length of my skirt. It covered me. That was enough, wasn't it?

"What do you even see in him?" Pine asked Rosé.

"What don't you? I mean come on. What does a guy have to do to get your attention? Doesn't he have it all? Plus he's my teacher. You know how it is. Forbidden chocolates tastes the sweetest. And it's not like he's much older than me. Our age gap will close as I get older. By the time we graduate who knows how he will see me."

"I suppose."

"Admit it," Rosé demanded. "You think he's hot and you totally get the appeal. Just confess and join the club."

Pine just shrugged but she also nodded like she agreed and she took a deep sip of her own cocktail.

"I'm not as crazy about it as you are. You want him to bend you over a desk and I'm just not there."

"Yeah. I do. Could you imagine?"

"For me it's the chase. I'd love to tempt him even though he knows he shouldn't. You know what I mean?" Peach asked. "I want him to not be able to help himself."

"You want that gratification?" I asked. "That's low."

"Oh and you're any better? I think he saved your life and now when he looks at you he makes your panties wet. That's what I think," Peach flicked her fingers at me.

"Well you're wrong. Pine, help me out." I sucked on my drink. "Peach is making it dirty." I gasped off the alcohol in my drink.

"I'm not involved. Find a way to defend yourself. Gods, I could suck down a few of these things," Pine gulped down her cocktail.

"Excuse me," a hand tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. It was a tall blue haired boy with bright amber eyes and his hair was done up in a spiky fashion. "You wanna dance?"

"Me?" I wondered and I pointed at myself as I asked. I couldn't believe it.

"Yeah you, sweetheart." I swallowed the last of my drink and set it behind me. My vision was a little fuzzy and tunneled slightly and my muscles all felt incredibly relaxed. I turned and the world blurred with me.

"Yeah. Sure," I managed to fumble out with my tongue.

"Go Yuma," Rosé cheered.

"Get some," Pine agreed.

Peach just smiled as the boy pulled me out onto the glass dance floor.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I danced close to the boy's body. I flowed so close to him that I knew I turned him on. I felt so powerful when I did that. How was it possible that I felt so powerful and I wanted to be so powerless. He didn't try much and the things he did try I let him get away with. It felt good. I waved my arms and slunk from side to side. I must have danced hard for nearly thirty minutes before I excused myself and went back over to the bar. I was breathless as I found Peach and ordered a cocktail. I wiped sweat from my brow.

"Peach?"

"Yuma, you're back."

"Why aren't you dancing."

She gave me a sly smile. "Unlike you nobody has asked me to dance."

"But you're beautiful," I blurted out.

"I think I'm a shade too intimidating," she managed. Was her smile brittle? No, it was full and the same as before. She was still self confident.

"That's not right. You're like, the prettiest girl here."

"It's a problem. That's for sure. Don't be sad for me, Yuma. I came out to drink and I am. I'll go out on the dance floor soon enough as well."

"I can't believe no one has asked you to dance. And they asked me before you. That's just… it's just so strange. It's like up is down and left is right. I don't get it."

"Yuma… it's really not such a big deal. Honestly. It's fine."

"It's messed up is what it is."

I watched a table over someone cut a line of white po wder and inhale it. Hardcore drugs gave me the willies. Before I could stop myself I walked over and pulled the dude's head back away from the illegal substance.

"Yuma!"

"Drugs are bad for you. That's illegal."

"What are you? A cop? Let go of me?" The man demanded.

"Yuma, what are you doing?" Peach demanded.

"I'm being a huntress. What's it look like?"

"You're going to start trouble!"

"Me? I'm not the one using illegal substances." I watched the bartender behind us talk into his radio. I took it all in even as my head spun a little. I felt like I was making a bad decision but I couldn't stop myself.

"Seriously fuck off and let me go!" The man shouted.

I looked up to see some men with crude weapons and in a sort of uniform with suits wearing red glasses and top hats. One of them came up to me to pull me off the guy and I put him in an arm lock with my supernatural strength. Two more of them came up to me with little hatchets that doubled as pistols. They were cheap mechashift weapons.

"Damnit Yuma!" Peach shouted and she delivered a right cross to one of the men's jaw that snapped his glasses and knocked him to the floor. She delivered three quick punches to the other man's stomach, each more devastating than the last as her semblance began to tick upwards on its counter. I kneed the man I was holding in the temple and he crumpled easily.

I turned to look at where the man had been doing drugs but he took off. Evidently he knew better than to frustrate a huntress.

More security guards came pouring from back rooms towards us.

"What's happening?" Pine asked as she came up to us.

"Ask Yuma. Little Miss too goody two shoes for her own good. Couldn't back a little substance abuse."

"They're criminals," I pointed out. "We take down criminals. That's the job."

They whinged but my team had my back at least.

Rosé drew her weapon and Pine pulled her staff. I was the only one unarmed in all this as the men came rushing towards us.

I dived into the gray with fists and feet.

I grabbed a punch and threw the man over my body and to the floor. I stepped on his head brutally. It was so forceful that his head sort of bounced off the ground and for a second I worried that I killed him before he rolled over on the ground. Pine flew forward sweeping her staff into the stomach of some soldier. Then she reversed her spin on it and whacked him in the forehead.

Rosé crouched and started shooting while Peach dived forward into the gray and started to rack up her own body count. Her punches started being nearly explosive as she hit without being touched. She knocked someone twenty meters back and threw a window.

I sighed.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG.


	139. Is That So I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"What am I going to do with you four?" I asked team RYPP collectively. I sat behind my desk in my office and stared over it at where they stood in a line. They said nothing. "Seriously. I am open to suggestions."

"Uh you could give us a high-five parade and a medal. We did beat up on criminals."

"Bar security. And you all instigated it," I went on. "Was it worth it?"

"There were illegal substances being used. I couldn't just do nothing," Yuma protested.

"Why not?"

"Why not?" She repeated. "Because it's illegal. That's why."

"But why does Yuma Kisaragi of Beacon Academy have to be the one to do something about it? When you fought this evening you called not just your own mentalities into question but also the standing of this institution."

Silence met me. I stared out at the girls.

"Why were you at Junior's this evening?" I pressed further.

"We went out to have a good time is all. It didn't go as planned," Peach sighed.

"You know about Junior?" Rosé asked.

"I've met with him."

"You did? Why didn't you do something about him?"

"If I wanted Junior off the streets or dead he would be," I intoned firmly.

"What?" Yuma demanded.

"Consider that just maybe I know something you don't. Consider that he's more useful to people like me where he is right now. Maybe we don't like the raggedy cat but it keeps the rats off the street. If Junior didn't have power somebody else would. This is the reality of our world. And you know what? It's not your job to take down every criminal in Vale. Especially on Beacon's authority."

"You just told me that you're not willing to do anything. I am," Yuma countered. "I'm the only one willing to take action."

"Don't be so arrogant. All you've done is take reckless, pointless action. Should I kill Junior or take him off the streets? Who would take his place? Would they work with law enforcement or resist? It's an unknown factor. Junior has proven that he's susceptible to a certain kind of pressure. He works with the law sometimes. Yes, he also deals drugs and in return we look the other way because the alternative could be worse."

"You just let him commit crimes, then."

"You're not getting it. Someone will always deal drugs. It's better that they be willing to work with us. Drug trafficking is a problem that won't be solved by taking down Junior and his club. It's not a matter of power or I could end it. People have the freedom to choose and some of them choose drugs and breaking the law. And it is absolutely impossible to round them up and take them in."

"So we should just give up?" Yuma demanded.

"We do what we can. When we can. We try to give people alternatives to hardcore drugs. We set up clinics but that's a job for medical teams. Not you. You protect humanity and the faunus from monsters. Grimm and men qualify at times both."

"Like you killed Raven Branwen," Rosé pointed out.

"Exactly like that. People like Raven Branwen and other mass murderers are our enemies. Junior is not in that category. We need people like him to find such murderers and stop them. That's our business. That's what we do. We sometimes have to work with petty thugs to make that shit happen. Am I being clear with you?"

"Not really. How do you make the distinction?" Yuma wondered.

"We pick our battles. And we don't start fights with civilians in crowded bars. We pick when and where we confront the monsters that plague civilization. We have to be careful when we do it. When I fought Raven Branwen I had to fight her in the middle of a town and the buildings suffered for it. But I had to take my shot at her and give her a shot at me. I would rather have fought her in the wilderness but I didn't get to choose the battlefield. I had to play into her hands. That's a problem. There are other killers I'm using criminal contacts to keep an eye out for who are more dangerous than Junior and the Malachites. I would like to find them and confront them on my terms before they kill more. I can't do that without eyes to see. My semblance doesn't let me track my enemies down easily. It helps me kill things when I confront them. I know my limits. You need to realize yours."

"So I just do nothing? That's what you want?" Yuma still seemed furious.

"You can't take down all the druggies in Vale. You just can't. And you can't start fights against civilians. That's a problem. We have a great deal of power and we have to be regulated. Let the normal cops and hospitals tackle minor thugs and drug addicts. That's their job. They don't need little huntresses getting involved. When hunters do get involved things escalate. Like bringing in nuclear weapons to fight a small battle. It's too much and your pay grade is above those things now. It's not Beacon's jurisdiction. It's not yours either. Am I finally understood, Miss Kisaragi?"

She was glaring at me but she gave a little nod.

"All of you have detention with me. Every Friday for the next two months. Separately."

"Aw come on," Peach protested.

"I don't want to hear it. You dragged Beacon into local police affairs. Something has to be done. You attacked people who were just doing their jobs with hunter levels of force. You escalated things beyond even regular lethal levels. You have power. You need to recognize that and be regulated. You have to know when it's appropriate to use your abilities and weapons. I'm no different. Think of how much chaos there would be if every hunter had your willingness to use their power. A lot of people would get hurt and in the past a lot of people have gotten hurt by rogue hunters. The more power you have the more temperance you need. I brought out my full power against Raven Branwen and other similar threats and I haven't at any other time. And that's for good reason. I don't need to and I shouldn't do it. I could kill Junior and all the Malachites but I shouldn't. That would be letting things get out of hand. And now, because of you four, things have gotten out of hand."

"I think we understand. It won't happen again. Right guys?" Rosé tagged.

"No sir," Pine muttered.

"No," Peach said.

"I get it," Yuma looked down at the floor.

"Good. The three of you backed up your teammates which was admirable but you should have considered surrendering. Sometimes the best way to win is to not fight. That's a hard lesson as well. Now why don't you all get to your dorm. It's getting pretty late. I'll see you all again come Monday. You're dismissed."

They shuffled out of my office and I watched them go out the door. I sighed. I hadn't wanted to do that. There were unwritten rules to the world though that needed to be comprehended by future huntresses. Ruby had involved herself in local criminals like Roman Torchwick during her time at Beacon. That was a little different because Roman Torchwick had a hunter background. That put him within Beacon's jurisdiction as well as any other group of hunters. She still shouldn't have gotten involved and I didn't want that for team RYPP. They needed to stay out of it and now I needed to run damage control. It was a problem back then and it was a problem now.

I had to intervene somehow. They just weren't ready. No matter how much they thought they were. And I didn't want them to be like me when I had brought my power to bear against anyone and everyone in my way. I had been speaking from experience when I talked about rogue hunters. I had been one. I still was in a lot of ways. I never wanted them to be in that situation even though they probably would have to kill before they retired. I could shield them a little. So I should. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

They hadn't set out for trouble but they had found it. That was a problem. Besides, I was such a drug addict. Imagine them really discovering that. I didn't need them crusading against every single addict in Vale. And even though three of them had only been supporting Yuma the way that they did it was all wrong.

I reached down beside me and scratched my dog's head. I got up from behind my desk and made my way to my own dorm. It was later than it usually was when I went to bed and I was tired. I didn't look forward to my dreams but I had to sleep. In a lot of ways sleep was a trap. Nobody knows what it really is but you die without it. Sounds like a trap to me. Whoever was running this shitshow for real wanted people and animals to sleep for some reason. That reason scared me. That was a good and a bad thing. The more afraid I was the better my resistance to Mother was. But on the other hand it also just left me scared and so unbelievably tired. It was a real problem for me and tonight I had a host of other worries regarding some of my favorite students. They got in over their heads tonight and I hoped that with detention they would learn their lesson but there was always the chance I would impart the wrong thing.

Teaching was so much more and so much harder than just lessons. I was unprepared for what it really meant and nothing else could ever get me ready for it. I was shepherding these kids' future without knowing what it really looked like. I had no idea what wisdom I was supposed to share and what to hold back. But every mistake I made could cost a student their life. I was blind, or may as well have been. If only I had some sort of thinker power I could see the right way to do things. But I didn't. I had no way of knowing if I was making the right choices.

I could only do my best and hope it was more than good enough.

I took issue with that.

I walked into my dorm, unlocking it with a key. There was a leather sofa and loveseat in a small den around a glass screen. There was a small kitchenette with a counter, fridge, stove, oven, and table with four seats. I wasn't sure why I needed more than two seats or so much space. The only other person I had shared meals with in here was Neo when she would stop by for sparring sessions and chats. One way chats, that was. There was a large window behind the table that looked out over the emerald forest. It was scenic but I paid such things little attention. By the table there were two dog bowls, one for water and one for food, and a small doggy bed.

Red walked over and took a drink before laying down in his bed. I supposed that I should follow his example.

There was a full bathroom near the bedroom with a shower bath combination and I made use of it to clean myself off before bed. The bed was queen sized and comfortable. It was the largest bed I had ever owned in my life. That didn't say much. I hadn't been alive long or had very large beds.

I crawled into it and fell dizzyingly to sleep.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Sunday I had little to do. I took my run through the emerald forest with my dog. I lifted weights. I refused to let any existential dread sink in. I composed and received a letter to Ruby and Weiss.

_Dear Ruby and Weiss,_

_A have some problem students. They actually remind me so much of your team. It's startling sometimes, even. They got into trouble attacking local criminals and going above and beyond the call of duty. Sound familiar? Maybe I'm just reading into things. _

_I miss you both. I struggle with myself. I lecture my students about overcoming themselves but I haven't either. It's an uphill conquest to beat me and I'm going down fighting. I keep to a regid routine here at Beacon. It helps in my war against my mother. _

_I train my dog and any student that comes to me. I always make the time. Someday the lessons I teach them will be put to the test in the field and I have to hope for their sake that I did enough. Can I ever do enough. Doing good enough isn't sufficient. There are lives on the line and they depend on me. You both know how fallible I am and what the cost of my failures are. I would pray for something, anything, but the gods don't listen. _

_The good I try and do is threatened with erasure. Are sins ever truly forgiven? I can only hope to do as well as I am able. I wish for the strength to stand. _

_Yours with love,_

_Cloud Strife_

Then I read their letter to me.

_Dear Cloud,_

_Weiss wrote the last one. So this time it's my turn. I love you, Cloud. Don't ever forget that. Weiss does too. In her own way. You know how she is. She just has to be all cool but she's mushy inside. Trust me. She's mushy for you. It's a thing. _

_I worry about you a lot and miss you with each passing day. You know I only want the best for you. I'm pretty sure that Weiss and I are it. But you still left. I know why you felt like you had to leave but you took a piece of me with you as you went. It hurts and I want you back. Promise me that you'll return to me soon and that we will see each other again, won't you?_

_Weiss reminds me to be patient but it's so hard. I hate waiting. Especially if you're really dying. And then there's nothing I can do about it and it hurts so bad I feel like I'm the one dying. Come back to me, Cloud. Let me hold you again. _

_I had an interesting conversation with Penny. You two remind me of one another sometimes. I was her first friend too. Not just yours. Isn't that strange for you both to have that in common as well as your artificial origins? I thought so. _

_She often talks about Salem hacking your mind. Her perspective is very helpful to me. You know that you're not alone. _

_Now you and Weiss both work for academies. I wonder if I'll be next. Anything is possible and Weiss says that I would be an energetic instructor if nothing else. She always likes to tease me. Now without you here she bullies me relentlessly. It's so unfair. What if I wanted to tease one of you? When will it be my turn? Maybe I'm a touch selfish because I want it all. You know that, don't you? I have big dreams and bigger expectations and I know you can provide. That's a selfish dream but it's mine. Don't you know that you're allowed to be a little selfish regarding me as well. But just a little. _

_Sometimes I think you really want to see us laughing at your body floating down the river but I'm not laughing. _

_Selfishly yours,_

_Ruby and Weiss. _

I put their letter with my other on a bookshelf in my room by my bed. I didn't have many possessions. I wasn't materialistic. But I treasured those small letters.

Then Neo stopped by and we trained for a bit in one of the rings in the gym. We were both sweaty from the work of it by the time we finished so we hit up the showers. Not together of course.

I wasn't sure how Neo felt about being pardoned. She liked crime. When we met up again outside the locker rooms we had a brief chat about it.

"Just don't get caught from here on and you should be good," I told her. "I'm not asking you to stop. Just don't let them catch you. I'm in the same boat. And I suppose I had better find out who took over Roman's old place in the hierarchy. Someone new must have moved in. We'll swing by Junior's and figure out what's what. Unless you want to do something else."

She pantomimed drinking.

"Yeah we can party a little too. No real reason not to. I mean I have work tomorrow but I should be fine."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	140. Is that So II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Junior's was a bit of a mess when we arrived. They were still working on cleaning up the mess my students had made and there were only a handful of scattered patrons at this time, around midday.

We waltzed in and surveyed the place and went up to the bar. "I'd like a fuzzy navel for my friend and three shots of vodka. Then I'd like to make an appointment with Junior. Can you help me out?"

The man behind the bar glanced down at little Neo then back up at me and nodded. He served us our drinks and I slammed back two of the shots immediately and held onto the last for a moment longer.

The man wiped down the bar then left for the back room. He took his time which was fine by me. He came back out to me.

"For you, Professor, Junior will take a walk-in."

"You know me?" I asked.

"You're the youngest Professor in Beacon's history. You're a public figure. Follow me."

I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised they knew about my occupation. They sold information here. But was I really renowned? I suppose it was possible.

I hammered my last shot and let the vertigo strike me. Then I followed the man with Neo behind me into Junior's office.

"Junior," I greeted. I was in my usual attire as was Neo.

"Professor Strife," he said. "You would do well to keep your students out of my bar. I'm tired of Beacon's finest fucking this place up."

"Would you consider it a favor?" I asked. "Or is it just that group of students? I don't think that they'll be back. Is that sufficient?"

He grunted in what I thought was an agreeable fashion.

"What did you want?"

"I wanted to talk about who took over Roman's place in town after he died. What can you tell me about him or her? Or has nobody taken over yet?"

"You would owe me."

"I would. You would have to answer me sufficiently but I would. You can call on me for something. I can even offer my services as Professor of Beacon. There are some perks."

"Very well. It's important that you said 'him' or 'her.'"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's both. A brother and a sister. Their names are Lila and Noir Engelbert. And they rose to power in Roman's wake."

"Are they a problem?"

"They can be… I wouldn't know how to start to combat them."

"What are their semblances?"

"I don't know the details of their powers. But Lila seems to be able to find nearly anything with some strange thinker power. She never gets lost and can sniff out any missing object or person. Noir has some trump and thinker ability that lets him pin down other hunters' abilities and see how much danger he's in. Together they can do pretty much anything. It's in combination that they are incredibly dangerous. I wouldn't know how to take them down and luckily I don't have to."

"You are the useful type. For people on both sides of the law. What sort of crimes do they run?" I asked.

"Murder. Theft. Drug running. That sort of thing. All the profitable big ones," he answered.

I figured I could probably take them. The trump power was concerning and I wasn't sure how well something like that would work on me with my magic. I would be worried about someone able to nullify powers of other hunters completely but I was still more than competent with my blade. In a straight up fight with no powers I could probably win. Add in my magic and things really started to skew in my favor regardless of how many abilities got countered I would have something in my grab bag due to magic. It was still worth being cautious around. All trump powers were scary and rare. Powers that interacted with other powers were the exception and not the rule. I would be careful and against a thinker I would have to be worried about but I figured I could probably take the Engelberts if I had to. Especially with Neo's help.

The question was then whether or not I should. Not all criminals were made equal and some could be worked with. Junior was the case in point. Some people could be used well and were good for all sorts of business. Including my business. Whatever that happened to be. I wasn't really sure which side of the law I fell on nowadays. I supposed I'd probably do as much as I could get away with. Marijuana was illegal and not super recommended for potentially unstable hunters but I still had a stash back in my dorm. What were a few other laws as well? Not much. Few people could really hold me back or stop me. Maybe I had a shade too much power but I could realistically do whatever I wanted and leave no witnesses.

There were probably other problem hunters. For example someone with a mind control power that spread like a virus. Or someone who could solve NP problems really quickly. That sort of thinker or master power could be a real issue. But there were few brute/strikers who could keep up with my whole onslaught of tools and I had a lot. I was also a mover, blaster, and probably a minor trump and thinker. There were hunters who had only part of my powers as their entire semblance. Stuff like flight and super strength and speed were like that. Then I had Limit which was my big game changer. I could kill pretty much anybody with Omni-slash in a heartbeat.

We're these two the sort of criminals who would work with me or should I have them 'replaced.' Somebody else would take over after them if they happened to disappear and if I kept that up eventually there would be natural selection for ones that I favored. That or I would eventually run into a fish too big for me to take down. That would be exceptional and probably unlikely but if I kept shuffling the cards and drawing from the top deck I would eventually draw an ace. I could make a problem where there was none. It might be better to see if I could work with the Engelberts. Maybe I could strong arm them with threats into cooperating with me but that also posed its own unique set of risks. They almost certainly wouldn't be loyal to me under those circumstances. They would rage, rebel, and writhe under me. That could prove to be a real issue. They could feed me false intel. That could get me killed. Faster than almost anything else.

I really wasn't sure what it would take to bring me down and I didn't want to be vibe checked by a real threat all at once out of nowhere. That sounded like a recipe for disaster. Surprise stress tests could be a real problem by the very nature of surprise.

"I want to meet with them," I decided. "Can you arrange it?"

"I could but that could cost you."

"You misunderstand me." I leaned forward on his desk. I couldn't let Junior rack up favors with me willy-nilly. He needed to know who was running this show and I had better set him straight. I splayed my palms over the desk and squeezed gently and the metal compacted like styrofoam under my fingers. I left dents behind on the surface easily. "You'll call this meeting because I asked you to because we're friends. Because if we're not friends this place will become my personal piñata and I'll hand you over to Neo. Let her have some fun. Spend your favors with me wisely and there will be more. I can probably kill just about anybody and quickly at that. I'm the real deal, my man."

In terms of damage per second on a single target I had everybody outclassed. I was the guy to beat and held all the records away and above the competition.

I needed Junior to understand that he pretty much lived and died at my pleasure. It was only through my grace and boredom that he survived. He could try and run but I would just find somebody to replace him. There would always be others jockeying for position and he could be swept aside easily enough. The whole Hei family could be dealt with. The Malachites, too, if I had to do it to 'em. I was going to run this shit show how I saw fit and if they didn't like it they could go grab that guy who could stop me.

"You killed Raven Branwen," he pointed out in a whisper.

"I did. You know about that? Of course you do. I'm capable of all kinds of things. I'm for real. Set up the meeting for me and we'll total those favors up to just one. Deal?" I tagged.

"That can work. When should I do it?" He wondered.

"Next weekend works best for me. I'm usually teaching all day. And I'm fairly flexible in the evenings. You have my number. I just want to chat with them. See if they're amenable," I carefully phrased.

"You want to know if they'll do what you say. They won't like that," he deciphered.

"People have a way of doing what I want or disappearing and no one has been able to put a stop to me yet. No reason to break the streak. At least none I can think of. Serious customers drop like flies when I'm around. I'm hard to pin down in a myriad of ways and I'm very powerful. Not to toot my own horn but I'm the realest man you'll ever meet. I'm potent to say the least. Make it happen. Call in your favors however you see fit. I'm a man without limits."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was smoking in my room with the window open and breathing out into the fresh evening air. My meeting with Junior went well. I think he got my message well enough and he should remain grateful I left his whole establishment in one piece. How's that for goodwill. Try and milk favors out of me, why don't you? I'll turn you inside out on a dime. I didn't come all this way and get this far to let some two bit gangster own me over some gossip.

There came a knock at my door and I waved the smoke out the window quickly. I was probably red eyed stank but there was little I could do about that.

I paced over and opened my door to see the headmistress. Immediately her nose wrinkled and I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly.

"What an… earthly cologne," she murmured.

"I smoke. Weed. It's a bad habit but it helps me deal with my Mother's influence on my mind," I confessed. "Fire me or hand me over to the cops."

She glared at me. "Is that so… smoking is bad for you. Drug abuse is serious."

"So is my Mother. She's for real. It helps keep the hallucinations at bay and helps me tolerate the way she worms into my head. It's not perfect but it's the best I've got. I tried all sorts of antipsychotics in Atlas and none of them helped so yeah. I abuse marijuana. I keep it on the down low but it's true."

"I'm not going to fire you over it. All hunters have their peculiarities."

"Coping mechanisms," I sighed. "Just say coping mechanisms. I know it's a few extra syllables but it's a lot more true. We live in a fucked up world and we bear the brunt of it. They're coping mechanisms."

"Well however you wish to phrase it, it hardly matters. I knew you likely had peculiarities when I hired you from our conversations. You have not been through normal ordeals even for a hunter.

"But you didn't come here to talk about my peculiarities tonight, did you?"

"I can discuss what happened with our team RYPP at a club in downtown Vale. What was the name of the place again?"

"Junior's. I gave the students detention with me every Friday for two months."

"And this is for team RYPP?"

"Yeah?" I hazarded.

"And you see this as a punishment?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" I wondered.

"Why? You haven't changed at all. Amazing."

"I don't follow," I confessed.

"Just so. Keep the time spent rigorous and don't chat with them and it should work out as punishment enough."

"Should be fine."

"I wished to discuss the draw of such locales to our students a little."

"Shoot," I fired.

"Well, would you know why our students would spend their time out drinking?"

"Coping mechanisms?" I guessed. "Blowing off some steam? Is that really this surprising. Haven't you ever drank?"

"Oh I don't partake," she said. "I don't like how it makes me feel. Who would want to be intoxicated? It impairs judgment and lowers intelligence."

"Clearer and clearer…" I trailed off. "It feels good. That's why. Sometimes you get tired of all the thinking and thinking and endless thinking and you want to be awake without thinking for a while. That's the appeal to me, at least."

"Well, did your team ever go out and drink?"

"Nah. I was too busy trying to catch up to spend nights drinking. Pyrrha was helping me with that. Ren wasn't the type and Nora was with Ren."

"Well what about team RWBY?"

"Yang did and I don't think the others did. Not sure completely. Ruby was too young and I can't imagine Weiss going for that. And I think Blake only tried it relatively recently in Atlas. Not sure how she feels about it though. I was never super close to her."

I really wanted to take Ruby and Weiss drinking in that moment for some reason. I bet they became absolutely adorable. Was it weird that the thought of Ruby or Weiss with face hot from drink turned me on a little? I bet they both slurred when they talked after a few shots. That would be well worth listening to. Ruby stuttering over words and Weiss fumbling with her elegant pink little tongue would be something worth beholding. I bet I could make them make the best sounds I had ever heard in my entire life. Hiccuping gasps and little moans and all sorts of pale shallow pants ripped from their pink lips. It would be a delicious feast. That settled it. I had to drink with them some time. I had to before I died and it would be well worth it. I bet Weiss got loud and Ruby got sleepy. So cute.

"-loud? Cloud?"

"Whuh?" I managed.

"I was saying I would really rather that our students find productive ways to exercise themselves. Don't you agree?" She asked.

"It's… hard to say. All work and no play as they say. So long as they don't hurt anyone then it should be fine. That's when the line gets crossed. But then that's more about an abuse of power than anything else. It becomes irresponsible then and I think it's wrong to blame that on alcohol. A lot of our students think they're invincible now that they have weapons and aura. That's the real problem. If only there was a way to beat that out of them."

"Have you tried - well, beating them down?"

"Me? That's hardly fair. I'm sort of a badass now."

"You're barely older than some of them. It could be a valuable lesson. And if what you say is true then it could solve the root of our problem."

"I'll think about it. I've certainly beat on some of the ones who come to me but few students have taken me up on my offers of extra lessons. It's hard to justify bringing my real power to bear against some poor student. But I'll certainly consider it. Maybe something can be arranged."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG.


	141. Locheart II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Peach PoV)

I sighed a little as I sat through politics. Most other students were getting ready for their weekend. It was Friday. But today I had detention and I wasn't free after classes ended. All because my partner felt like she had to get involved in some stupid bullshit. And now I was in trouble just for backing her up when she started it. That wasn't fair. But Professor Strife had lopped us all in together. Some teachers did that and I suppose I hadn't really pegged Strife as one of them. It came as a bit of a surprise then.

I slogged back in my seat. This was such fucking bullshit. The bell rang and I got up slowly with my things. Then I slowly paced my way to Strife's office. I needed to find something to do. I had a bit of history and math homework I could get started on in detention but I didn't really feel like doing that either. I was doomed to be bored and hated being bored.

I knocked on his door hard three times.

"Come in."

I opened it and saw the Professor and his red dog behind his desk.

"Good, you're here," he said.

I heaved a little. I brushed my hair back behind me and let it flow. Normally I would try and catch his eye but he really put me off. I didn't feel like it at the moment.

"Do you know why you're here?" He asked. He raised an eyebrow at me and let me stew on it.

"Because my partner is a moron," I decided to run my mouth. What was the worst that could happen? More detention? I thought that was unlikely. I chanced it.

"Come on. That's not why. You attacked people just doing their jobs. That's why. You have some real power behind you and you could have killed someone. Real power is both sobering and something you get drunk off of. It can get you high."

"But I had to back her up."

"You didn't get her out though. You stood your ground. You fought. And even though you won the battle you lost the war. That's what this is. That's why you have to be punished. Why didn't you grab her and run? Why did you have to fight? You can see the dilemma you put me as a Beacon authority in. What should I do with a student who did almost the right thing but not quite."

"You didn't have to give me detention," I kept up. I felt pretty strongly about this and he was engaging me. I felt like I was getting shafted all over nothing. That sucked. It was a harsh feeling.

"I really did actually have to. I couldn't do nothing. Could I? Should I let Beacon students start and finish fights with anyone? Be reasonable. You didn't fold when you should have and now you have to pay the price."

"But you just threw us all in together. I hate when teachers do that."

"You fought didn't you? Your whole team did. That's why your whole team is being punished. You have to see where you went wrong. You could have killed somebody."

I didn't say anything. I felt like shutting up and doing my work until it was time to leave. I really didn't need another lecture.

"You've killed people," I pointed out. "Probably lots. Isn't it hypocritical of you to lecture me about it?"

He sighed heavily. He looked at me for a long moment. "It's true. I have killed people. Lots of them. To be perfectly honest I killed some people just because they didn't have the strength to stop me. Some people were in the wrong place at the wrong time and I murdered them. You might very well have to kill people before you retire. And I hope that you do retire. But I never want you to be in the position I am in. One where you have killed for no real reason."

It was my turn to be quiet. I hadn't expected all of that.

"When did it happen for the first time?" I asked.

"Accidentally. With my semblance. I… I have a charge I can spend on an attack. I used it and ripped this guy in half out of nowhere. My strength escaped me and brutally killed some kid. And it was over basically nothing. I lost count a little while after that. It was a brawl in the streets of Mistral near this bar and brothel I was helping infiltrate."

"What happened?" I found myself asking.

"It turned into a shoot out and I crushed some dude's skull with my boot and cut down some others. I lost track then. It went from one to three to poof. Then I fell off the wagon shortly after that and I was killing just to kill. I had power and nobody could stop me so I just tore up person after person after person. Those were my darkest days. I don't want that for you. I don't want you fighting bar staff and hurting them because you have aura and training and they don't. I don't want you to accidentally kill anybody. I don't want you fighting in the streets and cutting people down in a brawl. I would like it if you never have to kill anybody. But this world is cruel. The harsh realities of it come for us all, hunters in particular. You may have to defend yourself or other people and you might have to take a life but I don't want you to ever be a murderer like me. You understand? That's really why I had to do something about the fight you got involved in. Not just because I have authority and felt like you should be punished. I'm doing what I do for the same reason I became combat Professor here. I want to do some real good. Sometimes that means handing out detentions."

"I think I get it," I decided. I felt like talking a little more now. "So if we're going to be having these detentions we may as well get to know one another."

"Where would you like to start?" He asked. He was looking at his monitor still. That was a no go. Eyes on me please Professor. Thank you sir. And I could call him sir. It would make for a kinky first date. Wasn't that a warm thigh rubbing thought?

"What's your family life look like?" I asked. Family was good. It was important. You could tell a lot about a person based on their family. Like how I was with my dad.

He made an odd face and looked away from his screen for a moment but still not at me. I bent back slightly to show off my girls. He seemed as though he tasted something bad. Not a good sign. "I have family troubles. I'm something of a black sheep to the rest of them. My parents disavowed me. My sisters are all allied against me. It's not good."

"You have sisters?"

"Seven of them. I know I know. So many. Not sure what my mother was thinking." He shot me a glance at that. For the barest second his eyes flickered up and down my form. He couldn't help it and he was close to our age. Haha. Gotcha Prof.

"They don't approve of you being a hunter?" I asked. I tried to get him to look at me again.

"Pretty much. Yeah. There's more to it than that but they don't really approve of the direction I've taken my life."

"Being a Professor?" I wondered keeping the conversation up.

"I'm not sure they know about that but they wouldn't really approve. It's difficult to say. I'm not really on speaking terms with them. How about you?"

"Well my mom died when I was super young."

"I'm sorry." He said. He glanced over at me and I waved him off however and looked away for a moment.

"Then it's pretty much been me and my dad. We're close. He worries about me a lot. He would really rather I did something other than hunting but I like the thrill of it all. I like killing monsters and beating people up with my bare hands and feet."

"An adrenaline junkie, then?" He asked.

"A little. A girl has to get her thrills." Wouldn't you know? You're the exact sort of thrill I could be looking for. Come find out, _sir_. "Why'd you become a huntsman."

"Well…" he trailed for a pause. "I was always going to be a fighter. Whether I liked it or not. My father pushed me in that direction. I didn't want to be what he wanted me to be. There was a time when I wanted to be a hero. Now look at me."

"I think you're a hero," I said.

"Why?" He seemed a touch surprised.

"Well, you're the youngest teacher in Beacon's history. Maybe any of the schools. You're our age and already so far ahead it's not even funny. You've probably slain serious monsters."

"More people than monsters really."

"So what? You've killed bad guys. That counts. You're the real deal."

"So what? Job done? I have so much left I need to do. I'm nobody's hero. I'm a murderer. I've had some pretty low lows."

"Everybody makes mistakes," I countered. I pulled my hair back and let my eyes shine. I leaned over the desk and threw back my shoulders. Let him really take me in.

"I've made more mistakes than probably anybody faster. No one has my record time beat. Nobody. I owe the world a lot. That's why I'm teaching. I'm trying to give back a little of what I've taken away and I don't know if I can. I'm not sure sins can ever be forgiven. I've done so much bad that I hope that maybe I can possibly do a little good here and maybe not make up for it. But add something that I once took away. Besides, I don't want to be a hero anymore. I'd settle for a long and peaceful life but that's just not in the cards."

"Would you have a family?" I asked. The family somebody would have or could have mattered as much as the family they did have. You could read a lot into that.

"If I had the time I would. I struggle, though. And that was never really my dream but I'm sort of borrowing it. And it'll probably never happen."

"Why not?" Did he not realize that he was a catch? Poor self conscious and low self-esteem? That could be an issue but it could also be a boon. I just had to play my cards right and I did have cards to play. I was supernaturally beautiful. I was surrounded by other supernaturally beautiful girls but that didn't detract from me and my assets.

"It just won't. I don't have the time amongst everything else I have to do. There's so much evil in the world I still have to get rid of."

"Sounds like a hero to me. Maybe you haven't truly let go of that yet," I informed him. I stepped back and stopped showing the curves of my body off. I wasn't really catching his eye like I wanted. He was too distracted by our conversation. That wasn't a bad thing necessarily. He was still focused on me in a way. I had to take the victories where I could find them. He was hard prey to pen in. But like any good hunter I just had to bait the trap right and I'd get him hook line and sinker. If he wasn't impossible then he was possible and I had his attention.

"Maybe a little. Maybe I haven't let go of that completely. When I went to school here I had so much catching up to do. Now that I have in a way I don't know what to do with myself."

"What's it like being a Professor?" I asked. At least I wasn't bored like I had been worried I was going to be. That was a plus. He was good conversation.

I found that I enjoyed talking with him which was a plus. Some people were only nice to look at and I was glad that he wasn't one of them. He could engage my mind. That worked well. I felt slightly nauseated at the thought of what could have been if he was boring. Instead he was exciting and he had lived so much life and had so much experience for someone so young. That was impressive. That was attractive. Anybody could have looks but without also being interesting it was more or less 'congratulations on your face.' This wasn't like that.

"It's a lot of hard work but it's not so different from military life or being a huntsman in general."

"You served?" I wondered.

"In the Atlas military. Shortly after I met you. Time served was a part of my punishment for some crimes I committed. I told you I had some low points."

"What crimes?"

"Arson. Murder. Prison break. Assault. Some pretty big ones. I burned down a building for this drug lord which was full of his rivals. I busted out some of his henchmen who were in prison and attacked some Atlas Security guards. I did considerably worse in Mistral. Some real heavy handed murder there."

"But these people you killed all had weapons. Didn't they?"

"They weren't just civilians. They typically worked for one drug lord or another. I killed some unarmed people."

"But not civilians. So you're not really a murderer at all if you think about it. You're a fighter."

"That is one way to see it. Doesn't really capture it all in truth though."

"Well I don't think you're a murderer. A killer maybe but not a murderer." Murder was such a gross word. Very unattractive. Maybe that is why he kept using it. At least in part. Maybe he really saw himself that way. That was depressing. He could float away if he wanted but he chained himself to the ground and he weighed himself down. That was ugly. I didn't like it.

"You're impossible," he sighed and ran a hand through his handsome blonde locks.

"I might be possible," I teased a little. I was glad that I went first in the detentions now because I was in my uniform skirt and that might give him something to look at. If he wanted to for some reason. I don't know. Maybe. I wanted to say something about how for him I'd be very doable but that might be a bit too forward. Still though, please give it a shot. You might like it. I know I would. I bet Rosé was right. I bet he knew how to touch a girl.

"And what do you know?" He muttered.

"What's that?" I wondered.

"Look at the time. You're free. Have a good weekend."

I felt a few shades disappointed. This could have been so much more. A Professor's office was certainly a kinky location and I'd probably let him get away with more than a kiss if he wanted it. It's not like I would tell on him or anything. Instead he seemed content to let me pass him by. Oh well. The chase was the best part. There was nothing quite like a good hunt. But maybe I wanted to be chased just a little. Maybe I wanted him to hunt me. What's wrong with that? It's one way for a girl to get her thrills.

I just had to make him want it. I needed a shorter skirt and a tighter shirt. Next time, perhaps.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	142. Kisaragi III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Yuma PoV)

It should have been ideal. I was alone in a room with the man who had saved my life and village from bandits and monsters. I should have been able to come up with something to talk to him about.

I would never be so bold as Rosé or Peach were about it but I did find the Professor attractive. Peach was so vulgar about it at times. He was a real huntsman. He was so cool. So maybe I got wrapped up in things and ended up alone with him for the wrong reasons. That may have been true. But I could still work with this. I just had to think.

I glanced up from my homework at where he was typing away on a holographic keyboard with a monitor in front of him. What he wore now wasn't too different from the clothes he wore in Wutai. He had a slick silhouette from the half cape and the vibrant turquoise tunic nearly matched his eyes and made them pop.

All hunters had a bit of glow to them. Professor Strife was no exception. He was supernaturally handsome. He was intelligent and powerful. He really had it all going for him. At least on the surface. Looks could fade. And I wasn't going to get my panties twisted over a guy I couldn't get along with. We had had conversations and I thought they went well. I was nervous but he seemed to brush that off. Maybe he thought I was just shy. Should I try and play things off that way? No, I wasn't a little kid. If I wanted to be taken seriously I would have to get serious.

"Miss Kisaragi? Did you need something?"

Oh fiddlesticks. He caught me staring. Don't blush. Think. I glanced over at his display. He was looking at power classifications. Master for people who had control over others. Blaster for ranged abilities. Stranger for stealth powers. Striker for melee ranged persons. Brute for strong or tough people. Thinker for extra cognitive abilities. Trump for powers that interacted with other powers. Mover for enhanced mobility like the Professor's flight. Shaker for area of affect powers. Changer for shapeshifters. Tinkers for those who were able to build advanced equipment. Breaker for those who could change states.

"No… and it's alright. You can call me Yuma in private."

"I see. I think I understand. It's a little strange for me sometimes since I'm barely older than the students here to be so formal."

"Exactly," I rolled with it. "Plus you and I know one another. From Wutai."

"Of course."

"You saved my life. I'm very grateful to you for that."

"The bandits might not have killed you, but I suppose that's semantical." He hand waved and glanced away. He didn't seem concerned about it in the least. He was acting like it was no big thing when indeed it was. It was big thing.

"All the same. If only there was some way for me to pay you back…" Was I being too forward? Would he take the hint? I was much less brazen than my partner and leader. I would have to do things my way. I tried for a moment to imagine him as just another student. I bet he would be popular. Nerdy little Kisaragi would have had no chance with him then. Maybe I should consider him as something in between?

"You can try and stay out of trouble and not go picking fights. That's what got you here stuck with me in the first place. I'm sure whatever you had planned for your Fridays was much more entertaining than this," he smiled at me firmly yet soft in the center. Like a bite of a caramel chocolate. Now he thought I thought he was boring. But that wasn't true. He was so slick and steady as a rock. And did he maybe want to go out and get a bite to eat sometime? He was a hardened bonafide badass. Maybe detention wasn't the way I wanted to do it but it did get me alone in a room with him. And he was so cool. The glint of his metal breastplate under his tunic shone out at me.

"I don't get it," I managed. "Isn't stopping criminals a huntress' job? Aren't I supposed to pick fights and take names?"

"Not if it gets civilians hurt you're not. You're not supposed to beat on every druggie you encounter. There are institutions in place to help those people. It's not down to you to fight them all and you can't do it and you shouldn't try it. That's what gets you here. I don't mean to say you should ignore a crime in progress like theft or murder but there's a distinct difference between stopping a burglary and what you did. Isn't there?"

"I suppose…"

"Maybe I'm not explaining it right."

"I think I get it. It's because no one besides the druggie was getting hurt. So I should have just let him do it to himself."

"Yeah, a little. That's a good way of putting it. How are you enjoying Beacon?"

"It's the best. I love it here. I mean sure, I miss my dad but I'm learning so much and I'm becoming a better fighter every day."

"How are lessons?"

"Good." I went non-committal. Oh no, what if he had access to my grades? I wasn't good at math or literacy!

"Don't want to talk about school, eh? That's okay."

Darn it. Now what do I do? What should I say? Conversations were a two way street. First one person talked then the other and now it was my turn. Think, darn it.

"What's it like being a teacher? I mean… you were a hunter before and this is different, isn't it?" Yes, go me! Keeping things alive and trucking. Could this be considered a date? I mean we were getting to know one another. It could count. I was so unprepared.

"It's a lot of work to be completely honest. And I'm supposed to show you all the way to not die. That's a lot of stress."

"But it can't be all bad," I cut across.

"It isn't. It's very gratifying. And there are days where I think I learn more than I teach. But there's always this nagging doubt that I'll slip up and fail to teach you something you need to survive. That haunts me. My failures will affect more than just me. Sometimes I'm not sure what the headmistress was thinking when she offered me this position."

"But you do so well!" I protested. "You make time to work with anyone and you always share valuable life saving wisdom." How could he think he wasn't good enough. He was incredible. Just look at the progress I was making under him. All of us were doing so well. And during private lessons he worked on my weaknesses with me so I could get stronger intensively. And he made time for all of that. He was so good.

"I come with a lot of baggage," he confessed. He scratched his cheek a little with one hand sort of sheepishly.

"Oh." I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that. Didn't everybody bring some baggage with them? Why was his bad in particular?" "Does it have to do with the laboratories? Merlot's labs?"

"How do you know about that?" He asked. He seemed a touch defensive. Did I draw back? Or did I dare to press forward?

"My teammates discussed it a little. With three of us you went to three different labs. It came up. Does it have to do with Merlot?"

"I suppose that makes sense. Yes and no is the answer. I still have to find Merlot and put a stop to him. He escaped me most recently so he's still out there doing his evil work," he explained.

"Why you?" I asked.

"Why not me? I have the power to put a stop to him. So I probably should. The same way you should stop a crime in progress. Merlot is evil and he does evil works. Someone has to stop him. It may as well be me. Don't you think?" He tagged.

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't see how that makes you unfit to teach, though."

"It's complicated and a touch personal. I'm not a very good person."

"You saved me."

"I killed a lot of people as well. Some of them were just vaguely in my way and I killed them for it. I'm not nice and I've had some pretty low moments."

"They can't have been that bad. I don't believe that about you," I professed.

"Oh no?" He streamed his fingers through his spiky locks.

"No. Whatever you did I'm sure you had a good reason for it."

"My reasons were good enough at the time but with the benefit of hindsight I think I went too far and hurt too many people. There were times when I killed because I felt like it, out of convenience. No other reason. That's actually around the time I met you. I was glad those bandits took you. That gave me a target and justification to kill them. That's a problem. I was looking for it. Do you see the difference?"

"But you still saved me and those bandits still had to be dealt with. You dealt with them. That was thanks to you," let's see him argue with that. Except he evidently could.

"But I didn't kill them because they were in the wrong. I killed them because I was messed up and I could. I had the power to do it. They didn't have the power to stop me. I killed them for the wrong reason. That matters. Why I did it matters doesn't it."

"Of course it does. But it's not like you destroyed Wutai. You directed yourself at worthy targets. That's important too. And you probably could have destroyed Wutai if you wanted. I know that now."

"What would you say I told you that I thought about it."

"Thought about what?" I asked.

"Nothing. Never mind," he sighed.

"No. What did you think about?"

"Destroying Wutai," he admitted. He was grimacing like I was putting him through pain just by talking to him. That's not really what I wanted but I also hadn't wanted to hear that.

"What? Why?"

"I was distraught by what I found in the laboratory near there. I was incensed. If I hadn't been redirected at the bandits I don't know what I would have done. Doesn't that scare you? Doesn't that bother you?"

"Of course. I think everybody has thoughts but you didn't do it. That would be horrible."

"I am horrible. Aren't you listening?"

"But you didn't do it. That matters."

He leaned back and rubbed his brow and sighed.

"You might not think so but it does matter to me that my village is still standing," I pointed out when he said nothing for a long time.

"You're right. You know, you remind me so much of a girl who went to school here with me. Not in your fighting style. You two couldn't be more different in that way. But you're both so optimistic."

"What was her name?" I wondered.

"Ruby," he muttered softly. "And she's still alive and kicking. She's in Atlas when I last saw her. It's been a long time since then. It's alright though. I like being reminded of her. It's healthy for me."

"Uh okay?" I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that. It didn't sound bad, though. "What was your time at school here like?" I asked.

"It was good. It was the best, even. I probably was happiest when I was here. That was before the fall. I still had my team back then and a little after."

"What happened to your team?" I asked.

"They died," he bit out. "One died here at Beacon during the attack and the other two were killed by Merlot's work."

"That sounds hard. I only just got my team but I can't imagine what I would do if something happened to them. No wonder you want to go after Merlot. He cost you big time. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry to bring up bad memories."

"I've had a little time to get used to it. And not all of them are bad memories. But some wounds never heal. A team is like a family and I hope yours stays whole and healthy. That's part of why you have detention. You went too far. You need to know your own limits."

"You're so scared," I realized. It came dawning to me before I could help myself and his eyes flashed with something cold. "You're scared that I'll die. That all of us will."

"Of that and so much more. I'm terrified, to be honest with you. There's so much you don't know and what you don't know can hurt you. There are so many Grimm. There are so many monsters. Shadows lurk in the rivers of time and good teams drop like flies out here. First my team but who is next? No one can say, but this job isn't safe. Sometimes I think the best advice I can give a student like you is to quit."

"Quit? Quit being a huntress? I can't imagine doing that."

"Save yourself. Give up and live a quiet life. Go home to Wutai with your family. Find a nice boy and get married. Have a family of your own. But this job will probably kill you. I'm sending you off to die."

"I can't just quit."

"I didn't think so. But it's probably the best advice I can give. Probably for the best if you didn't tell anyone about that. I'm a Professor and I can't be telling students to give up. Let's just keep that a secret between the two of us, shall we?"

I swallowed and nodded my head. Of all the things I thought he would tell me, that wasn't one of them. And I could hardly consider it and process it. Give up being a huntress? What would I do? What would I be? What would that mean? I felt like I had only just begun. I was still a huntress in training. The 'in training' part was important.

This wasn't how I thought a chat between us would go. I'm not sure what I'd been hoping for or expecting but it wasn't this. This felt all oily and icky bad. It felt like a bad dream I had one time that I couldn't quite remember upon waking up. But it made me feel a little gross and unclean. As though the topics of discussion had soiled me.

It was just so ghastly. Save myself? What did that even mean?

"You don't have to be so scared. You can maybe relax a little."

"No, I can't afford to. I can't tighten up or let loose. I need to be kept in check and I need that nagging suspicion that I'm failing. It makes me do a better job. Listen to us. One might think you were counseling me." He gave me a nice smile which was pleasant to look at.

Yay! Go me!

"Well you know…" I managed under his examination. I was smiling a little and I couldn't help but turn a little red under the look he was giving me along with his flattery. "That's just my charm?" I tried.

It was too much all at once. I was getting on board a train I wasn't sure I could get off but it made me want to squeal a little in joy from the ride.

He laughed and it was a rich smooth sound. And it sounded like trumpets.

"Well it's about time for you to head out. Enjoy your weekend. I'll see you again Monday. Sound good?"

I nodded feeling pleased. I gathered my belongings and left at what I hoped wasn't an unreasonable speed. I tried to be just nonsuspiciously urgent. I'm not sure how well I succeeded when I passed Pine at the door.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	143. Telimess I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**(Pine PoV)**

I strolled into the Professor's office right after Yuma. The position of first and last were hotly contested and I didn't care so I was third. I didn't not see what Peach and Rosé saw. It just wasn't for me. I understood the appeal to the man. He was forbidden and older and had edge to him. I got that. I was just a touch more down to Remnant about my chances with someone like that. Believe me, I got it. But what was I supposed to do? I may be beautiful but he was surrounded by girls of all sorts and colors like birds of paradise. So that's where I was at. A sort of apathy that came from knowing my chances were nada. Yes. He was handsome, powerful, and talented, and those were attractive features to have in a male hunter. It meant it was less likely that he would die horribly. That was the appeal in my mind.

I took a seat at the other table in his office and pulled out my school work.

_If _f _is continuous on [a,b], and _g_ is continuous on [b,c], and f(b)=g(b), and if _h = f _on [a,b] and _h = g _on [b,c], then prove _h _is continuous on [a,c]. _

Ugh. Math. What use was this for fighting monsters and people. Who gave a shit about the continuity of curves. I sighed as I stared at the problem. I had no idea how much work to show for something like this.

"Is there a problem?" Professor Strife asked. He at least taught a reputable class. Not something useless like math or literacy. I could read and do the basics. What did I need this for?

"Math. It's a problem. What's the point of knowing this stupid crap."

"Uh, so you can understand the computer science behind your equipment? In the Atlas Military I would have been lost without the classes here. I needed to know how my scrolls operated once Beacon Tower went down. Be real. It's important to know how the information systems you use work. That means knowing a bit of real analysis."

"So do you know how to solve this problem? You only attended school part of the way, right. You got along fine with what you had."

"I wouldn't say I got along fine. I struggled a great deal. Furthermore, my father educated me in computer science, mathematics, and physics. At least I think he did. So I understand a little about metamaterials like dust. Mang-Yills theory is critical to understanding dust. I was always headed down the path of becoming a living weapon. But that doesn't make me a mindless brute. Your education here is valuable and the teachers are happy to help you."

"So can you solve this problem?" I repeated the problem aloud to him.

"Well it's taken as given that _h _is continuous at every point but b. And at b the left hand limit equals the right hand limit equals the value at that point and you're done," he said. He reclined slightly. "I think that's all the work you need to show. I would check with Doctor Cauchy to be sure but that's pretty much the gist of it." I was quickly erasing my own epsilon-delta proof in favor of Strife's much shorter and cleaner one.

"So what, you're also smart?" I asked. I looked over to where the man sat behind his desk. He was tall and his blue tunic made his eyes pop aggressively out at me. I'd seen the hint of his semblance. Flight wasn't uncommon but it was rare for it to manifest in combination with other powers. Whatever that blue glow had been when I'd seen him beat Crystal down was his real power. He was exceptionally strong and fast besides being able to fly. He was some sort of brute-mover combination and he was towards the upper end of both scales if I was a betting girl. And I was a betting girl.

"Well I'm not mathematically creative but I get the job done. Like I said, my father taught me all about that stuff. He was a scientist. I think it would have been important to him that I know this stuff if things had worked out differently. I wouldn't call myself dumb either. I'm pretty fucking oblivious to a lot of the world, however. But I'm good at killing people and monsters. On that account I am probably creative."

"Killing people?" I asked. My voice came out surprised even though I probably figured something like that would come up. I asked the other powerful hunter more anyways.

"Sure. It happens. On accident or on purpose you'll probably end up killing somebody," he said.

"What's that like?" I nearly whispered. I hadn't considered it much myself. It would probably happen eventually. I suppose I could have argued that I wanted to be ready for that but really I was just morbidly curious. I wanted to know for me. I'd fought tons of people but I hadn't ever killed anyone and I wanted to know.

"It's hard and it's easy at the same time. It's one of the hardest things you'll face as a huntress but it can also be terribly easy. Think of the damage you could do to a civilian or a lot of civilians until somebody with enough power stopped you. That's how it's easy."

"And you're speaking from experience."

"I am," he agreed. "That's the real reason you have detention. You were irresponsible with your power. Not because you were out drinking. We couldn't give a fuck about that. Pardon my language."

I was fine with him swearing. It didn't matter to me. Instead it only seemed to highlight how small the age gap between us was. It felt like he was being more frank with me. He wasn't trying to avoid stepping on my toes and he was genuine. Better this than filtered in some way.

"But we didn't kill anybody," I pointed out.

"Young hunters often don't know their own strength in relation to a civilian. You train with other hunters and fight other hunters in tournaments. You lose sight of how weak civilians really are just as a matter of course. When I killed for the first time it was an accident. And the other boy had aura and hunter training and it still surprised us both, I think. Would you know how much of your strength to use to arm wrestle a civilian? Or do you think you would accidentally break their arm?"

"I suppose I would wait and see how hard they pushed against me."

"And what if you didn't know that they were a civilian or if they were a hunter. And you had to react or you might die. A little bit harder in that situation in the heat of the moment. That's how people die. People have died to young hunters who went to school here before. Out, late at night, and they get thrown into a situation where they have to respond and they acted with far too much force. I can say with certainty that I have no idea how much force to put into that hypothetical arm wrestling match. I'd probably accidentally break their arm without even trying. While trying not to, even."

"But you're a brute. You have super strength more than just your average hunter. Aren't you taking it a little far when you expand that to every hunter in training? Not everyone is as strong as you are."

"But that's exactly my point. Civilians just can't keep up with us. And your teammate, Peach, is a brute like me. She has to watch out. And so do you. You're not exempt just because you're a mover. And Rosé has no semblance as of yet. She could still kill someone. You need discipline with the tools you have available. Because if you're not careful people will get hurt. And that shouldn't be on you. You're too young to live with regrets like that."

"But do you?" I hammered. I meant it to be biting but he seemed to take it in earnest.

He looked struck by my words and his intense blue eyes glanced away from me and stared at the wall for a hard minute. I waited. I was sure that he would bring an answer. I hadn't really expected one when I asked but one was coming. I could feel it.

"I do. I have so many. I don't want that for your team. For any team. My partner died when the school fell. If I would have had the power I have now back then I could have saved her. But all the strength in the world doesn't matter to the flow of time. I can never go back. And afterwards when the rest of my team died I fell off the wagon pretty hard. I killed people for getting in my way. I regret all of that. I could have done more."

He looked so weak and tired in that moment. His sword hung behind him like a cross to bear. A symbol of his power and his incredible strength and might as a hunter seemed like it only represented his failures. It was hard to think of him as weak. We had spared and he had been fast enough to call out my teleports. He had been strong enough to make my arms shake. I'd tried sheltering behind my little round shield and he had pounded me into the ground in a massive downward swing which was hard enough to bounce me from the floor.

It was so hard, then, to look at him in that moment. He seemed thin and frail rather than broad and strong. I realized that he was collapsing in on his own body a little. Hunching in and bent slightly, he was folding inwards on himself.

"I regret the tournament's I've lost but that's about it," I searched for something to say. "Nothing like what you've been through. I'm not sure how I would handle something like that. My team and I haven't been together very long. But I still don't think I would handle it well."

"I hope you never have to. That's really why I took this position. Even though it was probably a mistake."

"Why? You're an excellent teacher. You work hard for us."

"It's in my regrets. I didn't want this to be one of them. I wanted to finally do some real good instead of slaying evil."

"Those are the same thing. Getting rid of evil is good," I disagreed with him.

"They aren't exactly the same. One is an addition and the other is a subtraction. Subtracting evil isn't adding good. They're inverses not contrapositions," he fired right back. "I want to add something for once instead of just being a force for negation."

"If you slay a monster or stop a murderer that's good too though. You're adding the lives that you're saving through the act. You are a force for light that way. You have to be. The lives you save on the other end of that picture matter and are added to the balance," I kept it up. It was important. I thought that removing evil was adding good. No matter what the Professor said. "If you stop a murderer before he kills then those lives you saved are added. You can't just ignore the people who would have died if you did nothing. That's dishonest. You're only looking at part of the picture that way."

I didn't get the sense that he agreed with me. He stayed quiet and looked deep in thought. He looked like he was wrestling with some pretty heavy stuff and maybe it wasn't really my place but I thought he could use some genuine help. He looked so bitterly lost and confused. He looked like a shocked puppy that wasn't quite sure why it was being shocked. He looked pathetic. And it disgusted me a little in a luring fashion that was hard to describe. If he could be so strong and yet so weak then so could I. I think that's what revolted me because in his weakened expression I saw myself and I wanted it stopped and cured.

My power was never a guarantee of success or happiness or anything like that. Having real power over life and death didn't suddenly make you inhuman or infaunus. You still were and you still had to deal with all the problems that were brought your way by simply being. Being was hard. You had to make real choices when you had the sort of power he and I did. Save a life here or try and save more there. How many people were dying right this minute because he was teaching us and not out kicking ass? There was an opportunity cost to everything and no decision was free from the weight of what could have been.

"Stop it." I demanded. I snapped it out at him before I could really help myself. He looked at me in surprise, blue eyes widening. "Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. You're going to make me sick to my stomach. You're still alive and you're doing your best right?"

"I suppose…"

"Then what's the problem?"

"It isn't that easy. Is it? Why do you attend school here?"

"To become a huntress."

"And do you think you'll magically become one as soon as you get handed your diploma?"

"Well no…"

"Real hunters are born in the field. If you really wanted to be a huntress the fastest way possible then you would leave Beacon and go out in the woods and ride or die. That's how you become a hunter."

"It's not that easy though."

"Of course not. You would probably die doing it. Ride or die, remember? But if you really truly only wanted to be a huntress you would do it. Or is life more complicated than that? Sometimes things get in the way and at times what holds you back is a part of you that you don't want to let go of. What will I be without this part of me? Will I be anything at all? If you look at me in the right light will I disappear without this piece of me? There is so much more than you know. Everything has a cost and sometimes you just can't pay up."

"Ride or die, then," I demanded. "That's what you said. You had better toughen up and find a way to live with yourself anyway or you'll die, man."

"'It's not that easy though,'" he parroted. Which was fair cop and I didn't have a good answer for him. I had no spark of insight or intuition that I could share that would solve this problem. It was hard. Damn near impossible probably. He had been through so much. Much more than I had ever thought and that was just him giving the spark notes version of his life.

"I don't have a good answer for you," I told him quietly. "But I don't like seeing people this way. You look exhausted. You look like… you look like you've had enough and there's no stopping you. I became a huntress to help people. Or I am becoming one at least. I can't even help you, can I? What does that say about me and the progress I've made? I think that's why looking at you right now is making me sick. It feels like it's my own failure staring me in the face. But what can I do?"

"You can't do anything. I'm not something that can be fixed and you'd hardly be the first to try so you should probably give it up. Don't you think?"

"Not really! You want me to give up? I'm not the sort."

"Everyone confronts a wall eventually. And I don't need your help. I don't want it. What would I do with it?"

"Find a way to manage your regrets," I ordered.

"That's not going to happen. At the end of the day I deserve this," he held out a palm in exasperation.

"I don't understand," I told him.

"You will. Your time is up, by the way. You can head on out of here. Thank you for the conversation."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	144. Gainsborough V

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was last in detention. It was late and I had taken the time to make my hair shine and a little mascara to make my eyes bright. I was in my combat skirt and legging to give him something to look at and besides, I was most comfortable in my combat wear.

He seemed a little surprised when he saw me once I walked in past Pine. She rolled her eyes at me as we passed one another but the general hope was that I would be so on point he would have to notice me. I had every edge over Peach who had been first and who was my only other openly declared competition. His eyes went a little wide as he looked up at me.

"Color me a little surprised Rosé. Do you have a date tonight?"

Yes. "No." Perhaps I had over done it a little. I didn't want him to think I was some tramp. "I'm just a little dolled up, that's all."

"Okay. Sure." Did he know? He could be incredibly perceptive at times. Would that be a bad thing if he knew? That was the better question. It was one thing I couldn't really decide myself. On the one hand I wanted him to know eventually. I mean duh. It would be hard to keep it a secret from him in the longest term and I didn't really want to. It was just a question of when. For example, I didn't want him to know tonight. That would be a bad thing. Maybe like a few years down the line, then. Once that age gap closed a little. That would be nice. Maybe by then I would be much more womanly and have a real figure for him to feast his eyes on.

That's what I really wanted. I wanted him to see me as an adult. I wanted to be seen womanly. I looked at him in his blue tunic with the hint of a breastplate peeking over the edge. It made his eyes almost glow. They had power to them. Real power. Life or death power. And they hummed with it. I breathed in. His office smelled like him. The hint of ozone and some spices. His power always gave off the fragrance of ozone. Like he was a walking talking thunderbolt from the Gods. And I'd seen him fight. And the air couldn't help but decompile and recombine in his presence into larger molecules. That's what gave off that odor. It was particularly pungent when his semblance was active and he was covered in blue flames the same hue as his eyes. He looked positively dashing when his power was in full effect.

Compared to that I felt like a little girl. And I was tired of that feeling. I wanted him to have eyes for me only. Only for me. I wanted him to stare at me with that sort of hungrous desire that a man only feels for a woman.

In my current trappings I couldn't help but imagine I was giving off the entirely wrong impression. He thought I was headed out on a date with some guy. But really what guy could compare to him? All the guys my age were total loser's in comparison to Cloud. The day before initiation they had strutted about and tried to show off to the girls with their bodies. (Cloud didn't need to show off his body although he had a rocking one with a tight chest.) He had other things going for him. Maturity. Power. Intelligence. Kindness.

What more could a girl want?

That was literally the complete package. There was nothing I could think to add. He would make an excellent prince. He never really cared that I was a Gainsborough. He was willing to stare down my Dad and my brother.

"Rosé?" I caught his voice.

"I was listening?" I tried. He gave me a look with a slow smile that told me that he knew I was lying. Did it come with being a teacher or just from being my teacher.

"That's quite alright. This is detention. I bet you had plans that didn't involve spending time with grizzly old me. It's supposed to be a punishment."

But how wrong you were, _Cloud_. This is better than any planned evening I could have had. It was him and I alone in a room. What more could I ask for?

This was perfect. It was basically a date in its own right.

"So we haven't talked in a while…" I lead.

"It's been a minute," he agreed. "Are you settling into your team well?"

"I think so. Once you get over her competitive streak Pine is great to get along with. At least for me. And Peach and I have things in common and Yuma is easy to talk to. She's just a little nervous at times but in other ways she has boldness. My team is great. They're exactly what I was really looking for when I wanted to go to school here. It's a bit of a dream come true and that's all thanks to you."

"Come now. You worked hard and got into school here on your own merits." He looked back to his monitor and typed away. It looked like he was setting up the matches for the older years.

"So what's it like being a Professor now?" I asked.

"It's a lot of hard work but no more than you would expect. And there is the usual crushing weight of the notion of my failures. That's always there. You know a bit about that."

"You think most of us will die," I interpreted.

"Most of you will probably die. It's the nature of the beast called Remnant. That's why I do what I can with the extra lessons."

"How are you a failure, then? How is it your fault. We chose this. All of us did."

"If you live that's on you. If you die then that's on me. I didn't teach you well enough to survive our harsh world. That's my fault. Isn't it?"

"Not really. I think you're doing the best you can and it's good enough."

"Good enough just isn't good enough. It's just not," he disagreed.

"But why is it all on you if we die. I don't get it. Isn't a little of the blame on us? You're being too hard on yourself. Again."

If there was one thing I would change about Cloud it was that he was always down on himself. He saw himself as a monster and murderer. If only I could help him see himself the way that I saw him. And all these issues he had stemmed from somewhere. Probably with his family which was off limits to talk about. But I'm sure he had a good reason for that. Families were hard to manage. They had a lot of moving parts to them that were hard to exactly place. I was sure the things that put him on bad terms with his family had to do with his huntsmanship. He said he was always going to have been a fighter. Maybe this family stuff had to do with that.

"How did you get your start as a huntsman?" I asked. I was naturally curious about him. Blame a girl.

"Here a Beacon was where I started. I wasn't very good but my partner took me under her wing and helped me out. I had had a little training before that too in the Grimm lands with my father."

"About your father…"

"Easy Rosé. Let sleeping dogs lie."

"Oh come on. It can't be that bad. What's the deal with your family? Why do you have conflict with them?"

"It's pretty bad. Drop it Rosé."

"Fine. What was your partner like? I already know she died at the battle of Beacon."

"My partner was… a princess. But not royalty. She did so much for me out of the kindness of her heart. At the dance that's coming up, during my year, I bet that if she couldn't find a date, then I would wear a dress. And for the record I rocked that dress."

I giggled a little. "What color was it?"

"White," he answered back immediately with a sure fire grin. "So yeah I lost the bet. I couldn't believe no one asked her to the dance."

"Why didn't you?" I wondered.

"Honest answer?" He asked. I nodded. "I'm a fucking idiot when it comes to women. You would literally not believe it. She liked me all along but I just-I had no clue. I was as dense as a ton of bricks and I never got any better. My luck with the ladies has been exactly that: luck. Dumb stupid blind idiotic luck. That's all and nothing more. I have no idea what the signs are that a girl likes a guy. All the girls who have confessed to me had to tell me outright or go even further for me to finally get the message. I'm an absolute fucking moron. I'm in the dark and it's where I belong."

I laughed at him out loud. I couldn't help it. It was just too funny. The perceptive hunter I had been dancing around was coming out and telling me that he had no idea I was into him and he probably wouldn't figure it out. He really thought he was dumb. Which maybe was true when it came to women. He was talented in other areas so much that I couldn't help but believe it.

He chuckled a little too but it was a shade darker and it seemed maliciously self directed. It made me stop. I didn't like that low laugh of his very much. It suddenly changed the context of his little speech a little. Suddenly it seemed dramatically less humorous and much more depressing.

"Did you ever figure out that she liked you?"

"Not until minutes before she died. No. Way too slow and way too late. It's funny."

"It's sad," I disagreed.

"But it's also a little funny. Come now, if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? And I deserve to be laughed at a little. Fucking idiot." He twisted his jaw and bit his cheek. It was clear he was talking to himself.

"It bothers you a lot."

"Of course it bothers me. I'd be insane if it didn't. Think about it, months rolled by and I had no idea and when I find out I can't do shit. I think that would bother anyone."

"But you think it's funny too," I observed.

"It is a little funny but it's only funny in that way that something horrible is a little funny," he pointed out.

"You're a little messed up," I realized all at once. I'd seen him kill people and like it but I never truly had it settle in on me that he was the far side of fucked until just that minute. Maybe I was viewing him through rose tinted lenses.

"And all hunters are," he agreed readily.

"That means you are too, though."

He said nothing in quiet agreement.

"You don't see a problem with that?" I asked.

"Of course I see my problems. I have to live with them. How could I fail to notice them? In my face all the time. But this is nothing new. You saw me kill and like it. You knew that I'm fucked up. Didn't you?"

"It's only settling in right about now." Oh gods, and I was still attracted to him even knowing what I knew. Maybe I was messed up too. Maybe it had to do with him. That wasn't a good sign. That was a red flag for sure.

"Cute. Shit. Don't panic?"

"You really are a murderer."

"Yeah," he muttered. "I really am. Not much I can do about it but direct it towards good and healthy goals. Limit myself to bandits and other murderers. But yeah. I really, really am. I like killing people and I like the power I hold over life and death. It feels good. And aren't I allowed something that feels good. But it's no matter. I have all kinds of problems besides the ones you know about. I come with a lot of baggage. It's a real problem. I shouldn't be around children. I'm going to break some of you or fuck some others up in my own twisted way. But I had to give it a try."

"Why?" It sounded childish to my own ears but I couldn't help it.

"I wanted to do some good. Or try to, at least. I wanted to bring something real into the world. Something genuine."

"I think I understand. It's a bit like why I wanted to be a huntress."

"And why did you decide to be a huntress."

"Well with my upbringing I could have been anything. I could even have done nothing if I had wanted. So I decided to sacrifice and to struggle. Because I could."

"Yeah I suppose it is a little like that. It's just important for me to understand my own limits and to sometimes set them where no one else can. I could be running this town in terms of the criminals. I could so easily fall again but I wanted to not. I wanted to have some genuine impact."

"We're a bit alike. You and I. I think so, at least."

"A bit," he agreed. "Not too much. Just a little. You still have your whole career ahead of you but for me it feels like most of mine is in the past now."

"Because you're sick?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'm not super sure how long I really have. But I do have to try or else I start out a failure instead of just risking it."

"What's killing you?"

"Not super sure. I already have seizures and stuff but that might be from something else."

"An old head injury?"

"Sure. We'll roll with that."

"Can't you give me a straight answer?"

"No, because I really don't have any for you. If I did I would care to share but I just straight don't. How were your last week's with your family?"

"Good. They were fine, I mean. Chrome still doesn't want me to be a huntress. That caused some tension. Then my mom kept pestering me."

"What about?"

You. "Just huntress stuff. It got tiresome eventually and I was glad for the switch to Beacon," I dodged.

"Don't really want to talk about family stuff, eh? Can't really blame you. So I don't. We really don't have to chat about your family stuff. And your brother is a handful. He's already earned detention with me several times. He seems to blame me. Imagine that."

"Yeah, imagine."

"I don't think that you're having to imagine real hard."

"He's always been the overprotective type of guy. It started out sweet but it eventually just becomes overbearing. It's one thing when we are young but I'm an adult now. I don't need him dogging every step of mine. I'm a huntress."

"You're still a kid and you're still in training."

I shot him a glare.

"Don't shoot the messenger. Really I'm still a kid. Or I want to be a kid again at least. I'm way in over my head pretty much twenty-four seven. It's a problem and I would and have killed to reduce the number of problems I deal with. Think about what I would do to this one."

"Well I don't want to be a kid. And I'm tired of you looking at me like one."

"Sorry."

"Sorry as in you'll stop? Or sorry as in you're guilty and you want me to stop?"

"Well I hope you've gotten some punishment by chatting with me because your time is up. You're free to go out on your date or whatever."

No, time, come back. Where have you gone? Can't you stay a little while longer?

I sighed and got back up to my feet.

"I keep telling you there is no date," I shot back at him.

"Then what's with the mascara? All that's here is me."

"I… you…"

"Have a good night Rosé."

Fucking idiot!

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	145. Like Dogs I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I had my meeting with the crime family tonight. The Engelberts as they were called. Lila and Noir. The thinker and the trump. They could prove to be a problem but I had Neo with me and it was at Junior's club. Neutral territory, so there was a low chance of a real fight breaking out. Not that I was unconfident. I could one shot nearly anybody and with Neo beside me I was a real terror to behold.

I walked into Junior's club and ordered the usual drinks. Three shots for me and a fuzzy navel for Neo. It had some fizz to it and some ice cream on top of the alcohol. It was probably delicious but I had my dignity and I couldn't be caught dead drinking something called a fuzzy navel. I was a man damn it. Or at the very least I was pretending to be one.

Then we sat back and waited. I opened my scroll and glanced at the time. It was seven o'five. They were late. Were they doing it just to piss me off or was there something else going on. Perhaps they just didn't understand the gravity of their situation and just how replaceable I could make them.

Then they walked in. A black haired woman with pulled eyes, darker than Yang's. She had a mechashift weapon on her back that was serrated and had blades to it but also seemed to be some kind of rifle.

The man next to her had the same black hair and dark purple eyes. He had an enormous battle axe on his back and he was broad at the shoulder. They both had the same round nose and deep jawline. They had high cheek bones and we're classically good-looking ontop of being hunters. So they had that extra special something on top of all that. The shorter of the two was the woman and she was still tall at just a handful of inches shorter than me and the man was taller than me by an inch, maybe two.

I looked them both dead in the eye. "Green and red," the man said to the woman. The woman looked us up and down warily.

"Just like Roman," she murmured back.

"Tell me," I broadcasted my voice. "Is red bad or good?"

Red was typically bad. But with powers that let you see danger in colors it really could be anything.

"Red sure is something…" Noir said.

"So you're fully aware that if this shakes out violently you're likely to go the way of the dodo," I pointed out. I was leaning against the bar. My giant weapon was in my harness behind me. I could activate limit breaker and then Omni-slash one of them in a fraction of a second. Then Neo would capture the other in delusory imagery and teleports and stall until I had time to deal with the other. It could be short, sweet, brutal.

"One of the two ways. Sure," Lila said.

"No, let's be clear about this. I could crush you both and you only live or die by my good favor."

They exchanged a glance.

"It's the girl with you that really worries me. I've heard of Neapolitan and she's the one who's red," Noir indicated. "Keep her on a tight leash and we'll do just fine."

"And I'm just measly green. What does your power tell you I can do?"

"Store a bit of power for later use in over charging yourself. That's all," Noir said. Huh. I had always wondered what was semblance and what was magic. Now I finally knew.

"That's really not all I can do. You're not picking up my grab bag of powers; of the two of us, Neo and I, I'm the more dangerous. I could kill one of you in half a second. Then deal with the other fairly quickly. You can't see the whole picture."

"I'm not scared of you."

"Well you should be. I'm the most dangerous man on the planet."

"And so what? You summoned us here just to threaten us?" Lila asked.

"Maybe so. I wanted to make a deal. Draw up some limits. That sort of thing."

"What kind of a deal would a Beacon Professor have to make with us?" Lila wondered on.

"I'm looking for some people that you can find for me. Can't you?"

"Maybe I can. But that sort of thing has a price."

"The price is me not killing you."

"I'm sick and tired of being threatened by you." Noir came out and said it.

I activated my semblance and crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat. I thrust forward up into his chest with enough force to make his aura crackle. Then I swept my blade around and down on his body. I flicked it out again like the tongue of a snake in a thrust that floored him. Then I brought it in three horizontal cuts one from each direction on his crumpling body. Limit Breaker faded around me but his aura was gone and with one hand I reached down and picked him up by the throat. I shook him like a doll.

Neo teleported right into Lila's space and put her in an arm bar before she could react.

"I'm still talking. You should be hanging on my every word. I will cut you into pieces. You will find these targets for me or I will discard you until I find someone who will. Am I completely and totally understood yet."

"How did you do that? You're green," he managed.

"Looks can be deceiving. Here's what I want. I want Hazel Rainart. I want Emerald Sustrai. I want any of the Arc sisters who make their way into town. And you two are going to give them to me or I'll reshuffle the deck and destroy you."

"Just don't kill my brother! I'll find them. We'll do whatever you want! Just put him down. You're killing him!"

Noir struggled feebly in my arms. Without aura he was as weak as any normal civilian.

I dropped him.

"Come have a drink with me," I ordered. "We have serious business to discuss."

I led them over to a table and sat them down.

"So what'll you have?" I waved a cute waitress over to us. Not aura cute but still cute enough to probably do very well for herself. She had blonde hair and green eyes and was on the short side.

"Nothing," Noir intoned.

I tsked at him and charged my semblance a little. I let the smell of my aura waft over the room. "You'll drink something. We're sharing a drink. Because we're friends. Because if we're not friends then we're enemies. And you don't want to be my enemies. So drink up."

"A whiskey, then."

"Piña colada," Lila decided.

I looked at the waitress who was writing it down. "Three shots of vodka and another fuzzy navel, please and thank you."

She nodded and left.

That just left me and Neo with two potential mortal enemies sitting at the same table. Life made for interesting bedfellows. If I gave either of them half an opportunity to kill me they would take it. This must have been what Roman faced with Cinder. But how to get out from underneath my palm? My reach was far with Neo in my pocket. They had to know that. And with fingers outstretched I could cage them. That was where they were bound to spend the rest of their lives. Under my thumb. Now everyone in the room knew it. I had brutalized Noir. And I could already do it again with my semblance charged up. Of course this time I'd go for the girl and rip her to pieces and leave the guy to Neo's games. And weren't her games delightful.

"So what happens now?" Noir asked, rubbing at his throat.

"You work for me now. I thought that should be obvious. You'll do what I say when I say and aside from that you'll remain free to do whatever it is you do. Of course it would be for the best if the things you get up to don't involve Beacon Academy or her students. But aside from that you should go nuts. Do what you please. Don't make it my problem and you should find the people I have mentioned. They are so awful for our line of business. I want them found and I want them dealt with on a permanent basis. It would be safest for you to leave them to me but things don't always go as planned. The Arc sisters will kill you and torture you. Best give me a call if they should come up. I'll give you both my number."

Neo gestured for more icecream and I flagged the waitress down again and ordered her another drink.

"I don't suppose we have much of an option to all this," Noir grumbled.

"Naturally you must do as you see fit. Bearing in mind the consequences and repercussions of your actions."

"Well we wouldn't want to step on your toes," Lila said.

"I believe I have mentioned my toes and how to avoid them already. Those things aside you can sell drugs, murder, rob, whatever you people do. I don't really care. If it's not you then it will be someone else doing it."

I reminded them a little how disposable they were to me. I could kill them. I would kiss them. Do what I say. The 'or else' was just very strongly implied. Don't give me half a reason to think that you're turning on me or I'll turn you into the dirt I walk on.

"You really don't care if we kill people. Isn't it your job to...prevent that?" Lila

"I kill people all the time. Why shouldn't you?" I fired right back at Lila. "Lets be reasonable about this. I can't expect you to stop doing your jobs? I may as well just kill you now myself. We have yet to see if you're of use to me alive. That would just be a waste if you met your end now. I suppose if you're so inclined I can grant that wish."

"We're good on that. Thanks. And we will be useful. If any of your targets are in town I can find them."

"Good. I hate searching blindly. Think of this all as an opportunity. And of course I can grant you great favors if you find any of my names. I'm the real deal so I could easily clean up your competition. Think it over. Don't go rushing into any conclusions."

Let them stew on it a little. I wanted them to feel hopeless against me for real. Which they sort of were anyways. If they were going to kill me it would have to be quickly and by surprise and I could have no chance to retaliate. Not that they knew that I could retaliate with immense power to the slightest damage. But I could. I totally one hundred percent could. So whatever explosion they set up for me had better kill me and given that I walked of Raven's white dust blade they had better have a whole helping or two of power behind whatever car bomb or building bomb they went for. Or else I'd walk it off and go and crush them. I was declining in my power as I degenerated but I was still near my peak. And at my apex I zero to death comboed Raven Branwen.

I was the realest deal they would ever meet besides maybe my Mother. And if they ran into her then they would have serious problems besides just little old me. They would be in it real deep at that point. Let's just hope for everybody's sake that it never comes to that. My Mother isn't as nice or as forgiving as I am. If she got her clutches on the Engelberts then they would really be at a point of no return.

"And that's all you want from us? That's it?" Noir asked genuinely surprised. He wasn't getting it.

"Well of the people you kill I'd prefer you didn't kill kids but that's-"

"That's bad for business anyways," Lila picked up. "So you want us to run our business pretty much totally as before. That's all."

"That's all babe. Glad we could establish some ground rules and get to the bottom of all this. There really was no need for things to get violent but you needed a taste. My power registered as mediocre to you."

"Do you know why?" Noir asked.

"I do. But let's allow each other some secrets and just call it a blind spot. Shall we?" I renaged. "You don't want to look too deeply into my life. That is a rabbit hole that's liable to consume you. Just don't and leave it at that. Shall we?"

"What sorts of favors are you willing to grant?" Lila asked.

"Killings. You need somebody tough dead and I'm probably your best friend. I'll also loan you Neo if you need illusions and teleportations. Like for a quick get away for example. Just so long as it doesn't violate her new pardon. It's in mint condition and I'd like to keep it that way. And of course any killings I do preform must be discreet so as to not compromise my position. That would be an issue."

"That's a pretty tempting offer. And all for people we should want to hand over to you anyways so we don't have to deal with them ourselves," Lila pointed out. "I don't get it."

"You don't really need to. You should instead just take me at my word."

"Then we have an accord," Noir decided, speaking for them both.

"I'm glad you two can be reasoned with. It would have been a shame to have to start over. But all is well that ends well as they say."

I stood up and paid my tab.

"Let's head out, Neo. Unless you want another smoothy." She hit me on the shoulder with the back of her hand. "I meant cocktail. Pardon me."

We stood up and together we left Junior's club and bar. I left the Engelberts at the table with the tab already settled. I could be so good for their business. I just needed a few things from them. Like complete and utter domination of their free will. But that was such a minor thing. Surely they wouldn't choke under that yoke.

And if they did, well, I'd shuffle the deck and draw from the top. Eventually I would encounter somebody willing to do my bidding. I didn't think I would have to go that far in all likelihood. The Engelberts knew that they were under my boot now. It's in their best interest to roll over, play dead, and fetch. I was cash money in their pocket if they played their hand right.

They just needed to not be dumb. They didn't seem to be. That was good news for my part and for theirs. Otherwise I would roll up on them and end them. I suppose they could try and run but then they would lose everything they had built up here. That was, to me, the same as killing them and shuffling the deck again.

It wasn't a real issue.

We walked out of the glass doors of the club and out onto the tall standing streets of Vale. The buildings seemed to lean away from me as I slowly walked so that Neo could keep up without jogging. My gait was purposeful and wide. These streets were as good as mine now. The lampposts appeared to bend away from me as the two of us walked together. Neo had some skip in her step and she was slightly toasted by the drink. She was enjoying herself and I saw no reason to quell it. Let her be happy and I shared a little of her pleasure as well. She was still silent but I got the feeling she was content to be once again second fiddle to the man running Vale's underground. It probably took her back.

Of course, I didn't need to be reminded of what happened to the last guy to hold my current place in the hierarchy.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	146. Like Dogs II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Neo and I made our way through the streets without anyone bothering us in the slightest. We passed tan buildings of brick and grey concrete ones with slanted roofs.

A drunkard of a man hobbled towards us but unlike in my halcyon days I feared men little. There was nothing a civilian could possibly do to me. Or do to Neo for that matter.

So we walked together. I was moving in the general direction of the Beacon shipyard but I moved without any real urgency. Neo pranced beside me, as elegant as always and full of supernatural grace.

"So Neo, where have you been staying?" I didn't really expect an answer. I was mostly talking to myself.

She gave a petite shrug. 'Oh here and there,' she seemed to say.

"I'm sure you would let me know if you weren't comfortable."

She nodded happily along. She was slightly buzzed to my eye. I was hardly feeling my drinks at all and I'd done six shots of hard liquor.

"I could arrange something for you easily enough. It would be no trouble."

She flicked my shoulder with the back of her hand dismissively.

"You must not need some crusty huntsman stomping around your grounds. Fair enough, I suppose."

She rolled her eyes up at me but I just took it.

"You ought to be more polite to little old me. I'm not long for this world, you know."

She positively glowered at me for that one.

"Well I am. Sorry to remind you but the sooner everyone gets used to the notion the better."

She gave me this quizzical look.

"Better for you and better for Ruby and Weiss as well. They still just refuse to get how much of a mess I am. And I am a mess. Somehow I don't come across that way. You see it though. You just don't care because you're also fucked up."

She looked away and nibbled on her lip like she wasn't sure how she felt about me calling her out on it. But she was a sadistic little monster and I was no better. I knew her. She knew me. She knew I liked killing people. There was no escaping that. I was a bit like a mad dog, rabid and biting.

She had been there with me at my lowest moment. She knew.

She made no indication of her response. She wouldn't really look at me.

"Yeah, see? That's what I thought. If only Ruby and Weiss knew about me the way you do. They might know better that way. But they are almost willfully blind to the real danger."

She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. I knew she wasn't sure what I was looking for but I really wasn't looking for anything. It's not like there was anything Neo could 'say' that would console me. I was this unanswerable question. Mother was sprinting while I was just jogging. I felt like I had little chance in a sprint and even less chance in a marathon. And the longer the timetable of that marathon the worse it would be. Mother was immortal. I was falling apart from the height of my power. I needed to end things now. Soon, before things got even worse. I had to make my move. I had so much yet to take care of and here I was bogging myself down with more responsibilities. I seemed to be constantly looking for more and more responsibilities and that was a problem. My bucket list kept growing and it would only get harder as things progressed and I declined.

Neo reached up high and patted me on the back.

I laughed out loud. She wasn't very good at consoling me but she was trying her best.

"I don't want to make myself sound unhappy. I'm about as happy as I've ever been. Times with Ruby and Weiss and at Beacon before were better but this is still pretty good. Things could be so much worse for me. I feel as though I've finally mastered myself. And I have in many ways."

It was true. Mother was kept at bay out of my mind. Her tendrils didn't constantly reach and penetrate and stretch my brain anymore. There was relief a little. My razor kept her on watch. I had weaponized my fear of her into something that sliced at both of us. Life had been scary enough before Mother. Now I was always afraid. But my fear had led me to this new path. I had conquered myself a little.

This was the way I would overcome my Mother. It was the only way. I had to move forward. And if I ever wanted a taste of Ruby's sweet, sweet dreams I needed to keep going. I couldn't afford to stop now even if I was slowing down.

There were things I needed to leave in order before I died.

"What will you do when I'm gone? You have money but that isn't always enough."

She looked away quickly. She wasn't sure what she would do. She liked playing second fiddle to somebody. Without me to play around with the edges of her life it was a mystery what she would do, even to her. She would go back to the way things were when Roman had died only without a quest for vengeance. She couldn't get revenge against time itself. That was what would be my killer.

"Don't know? I'd like to set something up for you but I'm honestly not sure what you want."

She pointed at me.

"Me? Well I'm sorry but I'm going to disappear. That's just the hand we've been dealt. I'm uncomfortable with it too. Death is scary. Literally nobody knows what happens to you when you die but I figure it'll probably be like before I was born. Just blank nothingness for eternity after eternity. That's not any less scary. I'm not sure which is worse: the thought it will end or the thought that it won't. You know what I mean? What if it's like this just forever? Nothing but fear and angst and dread unending. That would suck. Sometimes I want it to be over for gods' sake. But that's scary too. It's a catch twenty-two. I really just don't even know what I would prefer. Oblivion or more of the same. And what if it's awful? The gods are cruel. What if it's absolutely horrific and so much worse than I can even know. It could literally be anything. Death is a one way gateway to forever."

Neo gave me this long look.

"Yeah maybe I'm a bit too much in my own head. I really have enough problems without hypothesising my way into more. Can't really help it. It's the way I'm wired up. And don't I wish it was some other way. I really sometimes believe that all my problems are my own fault."

She shook her head.

"I know that they aren't. Mother is the cause of a lot of them. But even before her I was always capable of finding ways to torture myself. Like my blood thirst. I could probably blame that on Mother but I probably shouldn't. That's all me, babe. Or at least it has the potential to be all me. So it might as well be. Don't you think? What are we if we aren't our sins?"

She shadow puppetted the classic dog with her thumb and pinky.

"Just dogs? I suppose so." We waltzed around a corner, pacing the outline of a big tan building with a grey cobblestone bottom around the base. The green and blue holographic lights lit our way. They were soft and cast our shadows long into giants.

"I'm not sure that's much better. I certainly do feel like a dog sometimes. Is Mother just training me and tricking me? It's always possible. The thought keeps me on my toes. And you and I still have one adventure left. Finding my fucking father and murdering him in the coldest of blood. Blood so cold I could give a vampire brain freeze."

I was not dead yet. I was not done yet. I had a checklist of stupid bullshit I had to finish. At least one year at Beacon and then I was gone. I could hardly afford to stay so long but I made a promise and I would keep my word. Goodwitch really had to be thinking about my replacement.

I walked up to the shuttle waiting area and braced my stomach. It was a building hanging over a cliff where the giant ships could arrive and depart. It was a floating quay of sorts really.

"This is where I leave you. Don't get into any trouble you can avoid and if you do don't get caught. Sound fair?"

Neo walked up and hugged me. It startled the shit out of me but I hugged her back.

"Come see me soon and we'll have a little match. Okay? And hang out and get something to eat together. That will be nice," I said while patting her on the back. She released me and stepped back. She turned around to walk away. She gave one parting look backwards before she faced forward and marched away. Then she shattered like glass into nothingness. She was gone. I was alone.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I had an animal to take care of and classes to teach. My routine flowed like normal. It was carelessly easy to balance that with running Vale's criminal underground. My students would be shocked to learn how deep in the rabbit hole I was.

I was deep in it. I had all the dealings and the threats of murder and violence to my name that anybody running the mean streets of Vale would. But would that be a difference maker in my war against Mother? Was the juice worth the squeeze? Or was I just blowing into the wind?

I wouldn't know until my contacts turned up results and they might never. They may turn on me or Mother may just never make her move on Vale once more. I mostly doubted that last one but my Mother's machinations were an enigma to all men.

First class in the morning I taught the fourth years. Don't ask me why. That's just the way things planned out. And some of them thought they had big pants and we're ready for the big time. It was my job to knock them down to size a little.

I had them spar against one another but the best of them grew confident and lazy. One team in particular was like that.

"Team CRDL," I addressed. "Your opponent today will not be one of your peers. You will face me in the ring. Ready yourselves up."

I watched my old tormentors go to the locker room. I pulled my sword from my back and held it in an easy grip. It was unusual teaching people the same age as me. Probably not as weird as being taught by someone their own age though. Me in particular.

"Piece of cake," Cardin shot at me. They never learned. Almost none of the fourth years took me up on my offer of private lessons. That left this ignorance about me where my former peers thought that they were on my level. That changed today.

Cardin Winchester entered the ring. He was still enormous and taller than me. That hadn't changed. I was taller than all the other members of the team however. Sky Lark, Dove Bronzewing, Russel Thrush were all shorter than me. My sword was nearly longer than Sky's halberd. And it provided me with more reach than Carson's mace and especially Russel's daggers and Dove's sword.

On go, I jumped back and charged my semblance to full. I floated in on Cardin and one shot his aura to zero and knocked him out of the ring before he could blink. The nearly complete Omni-slash was a hell of a thing. I didn't actually complete it and kill him. I just swept my blade into his chest and flung him bodily away. I left an enormous dent in his armor but fuck him.

Then I flew away from Dove's bullets and swept into Sky's range. He tried to block with his halberd but I brought my blade horizontally at him and the force of it rang him like a bell and knocked him back a step or two. I stepped inside and thrust upwards caught him by the chest. I dragged him into the air and reversed. I slammed him all the way back to the ground from a twenty foot height. I slammed him enormously hard into the ring floor.

Russel tried to approach me with his daggers but I swept my blade in several horizontal arcs at him to ward him away. I back-flipped to dodge more of Dove's bullets and threw a blade-beam at Russel as I retreated. The blade-beam covered me a little and kept me safe from any approach options

Sky swept his halberd at me but I blocked and cast my blade from shoulder height to hip level in a diagonal stroke. It slammed him across the chest and knocked him to the floor again. I was ripping them all to pieces and they really couldn't stop me. I was a terror on the battlefield and they were experiencing it for real right here and now.

In an arcing front-flip forward I brought my blade down on Dove. It slammed him into the ground even though he blocked with enough force to bounce him. The massive two hand attack was too much for him to bear. It had all the force behind it of a truck barreling down the highway. Then I side-flipped and brought my blade from low to high into his chest. I kept the combo going with a flying approach. I swung up with my blade and flung him higher into the air.

I flew after him swinging my blade horizontally and knocking him back further before he could touch the ground. I continued my assault and flew over him and stabbed my blade down on him. I spiked him hard into the floor outside of the ring. I landed and paused to charge my semblance. I stared the last two down. I dated them to approach me or else. My semblance always forced my enemy to approach sooner or later.

Sky approached me and I made him pay for it with a leaping horizontal kick that caught him in the chest. He brought his weapon around and slammed me into the floor but I just floated back to my feet easily. I hardly was in tumble because of my float. I blocked his next strike gliding backwards on a pocket of air and I turned to deflect every single cut in an eight string rush my Russel. I popped him into the air with an upwards swing and reversed my blade and slammed him hard into the floor with a spike.

That activated my semblance and I wasted no time in Cross-Slashing him before he could even get to his feet.

That just left Sky and I. He was low on aura and I was nearly full. I hovered towards him in a too-long roll. I came to my feet swinging upwards in a golf swing that caught him all across the front of his body and launched him backwards out of the ring and into the red.

I really took no pride in it. It was easy. I was terrible. That's the way it worked.

So I called the next team down and I beat the shit out of them too. Then the next.

By the end of today they would realize their mortality and that I was a joke no longer.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	147. Telimess II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Pine)

"Any mail for me?" Rosé asked me. She looked up at Yuma from her scroll on her bed. I was dozing beside her on my own browsing my scroll in silent companionship.

"One for you and there's one for Pine," Yuma mumbled. She handed me a pale tan envelope. I took it and sat up on the bed. I dug my fingernails under the crease and ripped it open.

I pillowed out a pale letter and began to read.

_Dear Pine Telimess,_

_We would like to congratulate you on your recent tournament victory in Vale. In light of this you are personally invited to compete in our own tournament in Menagerie. The tournament is taking place the twenty fourth of September please return this letter accepting the slot if you wish to compete. _

_Regards, Kali Belladonna. _

"What's up Pine?" Rosé asked.

"Because I won the Valean Tournament I've been invited to compete in another in Menagerie."

"I was invited too as the runner up."

"As first loser, you mean," I pointed out teasingly.

"Well, are you two going to accept?" Yuma asked.

"Can we miss school?" Rosé asked.

"Team trip!" Peach exclaimed. "Let's get out of this stuffy old school."

"Who said you were going?" I asked.

"Team trip?" Peach wondered, a little withdrawn. "Come on. I want out of here too."

"We should talk to somebody. Can we make an appointment with the headmistress?" Rosé asked.

"I don't see why not. But I also don't see how," Yuma pointed out.

"There has got to be a way. Let's ask the Prof," Peach said. She got up and stretched her arms way over her head.

I knew that Rosé was inclined to agree with her just on the principle. Yuma would as well so we were probably bound for Strife's office. He would be there if he wasn't mid appointment. We gathered ourselves and marched down the halls.

We made our way to the combat Professor's door and knocked. He was in and bid us enter.

"You four? I should be less surprised," he commented.

"Oh don't be like that, sir," Peach intoned.

"Yeah, okay. Alright. Anyways what can I do for you ladies?" He asked.

"We got invitations to a tournament in Menagerie. Pine and I both did," Rose showed him her letter.

I stood there with my arms folded in place and tapped my foot on the floor.

He took the letter and read it quickly.

"And so you want permission to go? I can't authorize that. You need to talk to the headmistress."

"Yeah we were hoping you could set up an appointment with her," I said.

"I can. You'll have to make up the missed work. You all want to go? Even you Miss Kisaragi and Miss Locheart?"

"Yeah. We're a team," Peach said.

"Gonna be a tough enough sell as it is. We'll head up to the headmistress's office. Follow me."

Professor Strife led the way to an elevator which we took up. When the door opened we were in a fish bowl overlooking the entire campus. There was a great glass curved desk with a chair and the headmistress was writing something.

"Cloud? How can I help you? And team RYPP?"

"Glynda… these students have something they wish to discuss with you. Are you busy?"

"Yes, always. But I do have some time to spare."

I walked over to the desk and showed her my letter. She adjusted her glasses on her face as she read it in its entirety.

"And you would like to be excused from classes for a few days. That can be arranged."

"I also received a letter, ma'am," Rosé cut in.

"For both of you, then. That is possible."

"Uh, what about us?" Peach asked.

"Did you also receive a letter?" Goodwitch asked.

"Well, no."

"Did your partner perhaps get invited?" Goodwitch pressed onward.

Yuma shook her head and Peach muttered, "not exactly."

"Well then it can't be helped. You must attend your classes. I can hardly condone you leaving. Perhaps if your partner was going I would consider it but you both shall remain here. I will authorize your trip, Miss Gainsborough, Miss Telimess. But the rest of your team is staying."

"Oh come on, team trip," Peach protested.

"I'm afraid my desicion is final."

"Can we at least go see them off at the airfield?" Yuma asked.

"That's permissible. Is that all?"

There were generally nods around.

"Then you are dismissed. You may both pack your things and do well to remember that you are representing Beacon Academy."

Peach's shoulders slumped but it was what it was. There was nothing to be done. We left the fishbowl office down the elevator we came in with Professor Strife with us. When the elevator started Yuma bumped against him and squealed out an apology.

Professor Strife left us for his office and we made our way back to our room.

Peach flopped down on her bed. "This is such bullshit."

"It's not like we're getting out of school work. We still have to do it," I pointed out.

"Yeah but you get to leave, explore, and have fun. While we're stuck here."

"I would have liked to go with you but there's nothing to be done," Yuma agreed with Peach. "We'll cheer you both on from here."

"Thank you Yuma. I wanted you both to come too," Rosé agreed.

Peach groaned.

"It's just another tournament," I noted. "It's not a big deal."

"You get to travel the world. That's why people become huntresses," Peach bemoaned.

"Menagerie is a dump," I disagreed. "Rosé will see. You're not missing much."

"That should be mine to find out," Peach went on.

"Enter some tournaments?" I gestured. "Don't know what to tell you."

"One day I'll see for myself," Peach decided.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The Vale shipyards were massive and built into the side of a cliff. A mountain right in the middle of Vale where airships docked without loosing elevation built of grey and blue glass glass and metal.

We took the airship to Vale and then a train to the shipyards in the middle of the night. Yuma and Peach were sorry to see us go but we had a flight to catch and real combat to compete in. It was time to see if Professor Strife's training was paying off. I thought it was. He seemed incredibly experienced and on point but there was really only one way to be sure.

It was dark when we walked out into one of the hangers. Rosé and I had some luggage with all our gear. We watched through the blue windows. Up and out. Atlas airships were coming in to land. Lots of them. An entire fleet was choking up the airspace along with a cocular floating platform.

Peach's scroll pinged. She checked it. "It's a message from my friend. In Atlas. How is this possible?" She asked.

Then a dust bomb went off.

Glass shattered and my body was flung into a metal girder. My wing was battered and bruised and I lost hold of my luggage. I dazidly sat up. Rosé hadn't fared much better. She was dangling off the side of the hanger in open air. I rolled over to her and hauled back over the ledge.

Peach hauled us both to our feet. People were running and screaming and the airship to Menagerie was going down to the lower city. It collided with the lower part of the mountain and slid down the slope.

Shattered glass was everywhere with bent metal. The tunnels and domes that made up the shipyard were torn open. An Atlas ship was going down.

A girl in a red trench coat and black under shirt with a knife and a gun dashed past us. She was quickly followed by two nearly identical girls with a double ended glaive and the other had a long sword. One was in an orange trenchcoat with black under shirt and the other was the same only in yellow.

They were wearing masks and we're moving towards a docked Atlas ship. They may as well have been screaming we're guilty. I pulled my staff and shield and Rosé opened fire with her rifle. Peach let loose a thunderbolt. The girls preternaturally flipped out of the way.

Yuma breezed in front of them and got between them and the airship. They surrounded her with their weapons ready.

"Get out of our way," the girl in red spoke.

The rest of us moved in on the three girls and hemmed them in. They looked back at us.

Then the girl in red jumped and fired her pistol right in Yuma's face. She followed it up with a lighting fast double jab of her knife.

The girl in orange shot at me with her long rifle and the girl in yellow cocked and fired her repeater straight at Peach. I took to the air and flew forward when a enormous hand wrapped around my foot and pulled me back. The man was enormous and he slammed me into the ground. He had brown hair and brown eyes and whiskers on the side of his face.

"You girls go ahead," the man rumbled. The girl in red nodded and side-flipped over Yuma and kicked her in the back.

The man reached behind his body and took two enormous red dust crystals and slammed them into his forearms. His body caught fire. Rosé stepped in and slashed his body but he punched her in the head so hard she went through most of a back-flip. Peach stepped in and punched him twice in the chest and followed it with an uppercut to his head. Then she kicked him in the side of the knee. I knew how hard she could hit after four hits and the kick made him stumble to the ground. She fired a straight at his face and he held up a hand and stopped it. He yanked her in and clotheslined her with a flaming arm and then he stepped on her chest.

Yuma took a massive shot to the back from the girl in orange. And she was sliced by the girl in yellow as she went by.

When she turned to look at us the man wrapped his burning hand around her head and picked her up into the air and flung her into a wall hard enough to crack it.

A purple eyed girl with black hair jumped down with her blade on the burning man and a nearly identical black haired man swept a great halberd into the brown eyes man's side.

"I know those two," Yuma managed. "They're Lila and Noir Engelbert. They're wanted people."

"What do we do?" Peach asked.

"Whatever we can. Take them all down!" Rosé shouted and she kept blade first into the fray. Noir blocked with his halberd.

"Don't do this little girl. Sit down," the purple eyed man said. Then he swung his halberd down on her.

The flaming man swung a meaty fist right into Lila's face. She stepped back right into Yuma's shuriken. It rebounded thanks to Yuma's semblance and she caught it.

I jumped and slammed my shield right into the giant man's face. Peach stepped inside and punched him in the gut. Then she stepped back out and waited for me to make another opening. I spun my staff and he caught it one hand. He tried to pull me in but I flared my wings and smacked him with a giant beat.

Peach thrust a kick at the inside of his knee and it connected. He swung a hand at her but she weaved back out. I connected with my staff on the side of his head and Peach maneuvered in and let out three rapid fire punches to his wide body. Each blow was stronger than the last and final one staggered him. I brought my staff down in a two handed swing and he exhaled a torrent of fire on both of us like a dragon.

Rosé was flung bodily into the railing by a swing of the black haired man's halberd. Her head slammed into the one of the metal bars hard and she dizzily got back to her feet. Once she was standing the purple eyed man shouted, "stay down!" And he slammed her chest with his weapon hard enough to floor her.

Yuma was faring little better. The woman stepped inside with her blade and cut three quick slashes across Yuma's torso. Yuma raised her weapon to block but the woman caught one end of the shuriken and yanked Yuma forward into a knee. Then she picked Yuma up and slammed her into the ground.

The flames began to die down around the brown eyes giant. He didn't seem daunted by it though. He swung his fist in Noir direction and clobbered him.

I jumped and brought my staff down on the back of his head. He hunched over a little from the blow but didn't seem too affected. He turned around and I tried to fly backward out of his reach but a meaty hand caught me by the wing like a butterfly and smashed me to the ground. He brought his foot down hard on my wing and I was sure that without aura my bones would have broken. As it was I still screamed out.

Peach jumped on the man's back and wailed on him with her fist. One, two, three, four, five, six, she pounded him down. He reached over his head and grabbed her and tossed her over the railing. I dived after her with my wings spread wide. She was screaming as we both fell through open air. I reached out and grabbed her and beat my wings frantically. I wasn't able to stay aloft let alone return to the top of the mountain but I was able to slow our descent and set her on the ground.

Once I did I turned around and took off to fly back up.

"Wait!" Peach called out but I realistically couldn't. It was ride or die time. I landed on the platform dangling over the edge of the mountain and found Rosé and Yuma battered to the floor. The two, I could only assume, siblings had the brown haired man pinned against the railing and they were wailing on him together in coordination. I ran over to Yuma who seemed dazed but conscious. I helped her to her feet and gather her weapon before making my way to the totally knocked out Rosé. She had a lump like an egg on the side of her head that was already starting to bruise. She could be concussed and getting knocked out could be super bad for you. As in permanent brain damage bad. She would need a radiologist, neurologist, and probably a psychiatrist. And that would just be the start.

I picked her up over one shoulder. She was a full grown human being. She wasn't light but I was a huntress so I managed. Carrying a person is awkward. They really aren't meant to be carried.

I turned back towards the fighting. The woman brought her blade down on the giants arms and the large man tried to close in and grapple her but she dodged out of the way. Noir stepped in and shoved his polearm right into the giant's chest and held him at bay. Then he held the long instrument in one hand and swung in a mighty circle, bringing the enormous blade down and around on the giant in a tremendous swipe. The giant braced himself to hold his ground but was slammed back.

The woman dashed in and delivered five rapid cuts to his back then she stepped back out of the way of his titanic paws.

Together, they drove him to the edge of the railing over which there was nothing but open air. Noir stabbed his armament forward and fired right into the giants chest knocking him back and thrust. The brown eyes man wavered in the open space and reached out and grabbed the polearm for something to hold onto. He held on desperately as he leaned way out over the edge. Lila stepped in and kicked him in the chest like she was shoving a refrigerator. He lost his balance and plummeted with waving arms.

There came heavy footfalls and the slow draw of a blade behind me. I turned to see the Professor with his half cape looking at the carnage.

"Where did they go?" He asked.

"Right there!" Yuma pointed at Noir and Lila.

"Not them. The other bombers. Probably girls. The real threat."

"In the ship!" Lila pointed. "Not us."

"Stay here," the Professor ordered us. "Keep your head's down."

Then he turned and glided away.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	148. The Girls Never Leave You Alone I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I blitzed after my sisters onto the Atlas ship. I left Noir and Lila behind. I would owe them a favor after this, probably two. That could cost me. Then again they had been in combat with my students. That was a problem. But they hadn't killed any of them or hurt them. ssssssssss

I only had to charge through the ship and follow the carnage. They had slaughtered Atlas soldiers and machines as they made their way to the bridge. My sisters were a real menace. And to be perfectly honest I wasn't sure how much of a match I was for a couple of them.

I found them. We could feel each other so it wasn't like I could sneak up on them. They turned around on the bridge to look at me.

"Juniper, Kolumbine, and Saphron," I muttered. "It's good to see you, little sisters."

They were the same as when I'd last seen them. The twins were in orange and yellow and wielded a repeater blade and sniper rifle pike. Saphron had her sidearm and a dagger.

"Jaune, you shouldn't be here," Saphron said.

"We can feel your terror," Kolumbine murmured.

"It hurts us all the way you wall yourself off from us," Juniper indicated.

"Stay the fuck out of my head, then," I decreed.

"We can't help it. You know that," Saphron pointed out.

"Tough shit. Can't you take it? I can. It feels good," I sighed.

"You can't possibly like being so afraid," Juniper disagreed.

"You've made it a nightmare. We are supposed to be united," Kolumbine went on.

"You are. That's not for me. I'm not like any of you. You're all a part of the good batch. My life is always a fucking nightmare. Deal with it."

Then Saphron shot me in the head. That's what started things I think because Juniper started firing her repeater and Kolumbine tried to knock my block off with her anti-material rifle.

I swept a blade-beam forward and chased it to close the gap. I back-flipped forward to land in front of Juniper. I stepped forward and brought my blade upwards in an enormous arc. She stopped it with her own sword. I twisted and brought my blade to the side and slammed it into her body. There was a pop and a crackle and I was blown off my feet and into but not through a glass window.

"Can't touch me," Juniper waggled a finger at me.

"No one is invincible. I'll find a way."

Saffron back-flipped at me and brought her knife downwards. Then she popped into the air, fired her gun and slid in on me and stabbed at my chest. I deflected her to the side or tried to, at least. I ended up struggling against her.

"That applies to you too brother," she whispered. "You can be killed and your era of fear will end."

"I will defeat Mother," I vowed.

"Impossible," Kolumbine added with a thrust of her pike. I jumped in a long lasting floating front-flip and changed direction in mid-air to dodge Juniper's repeater.

I landed and activated my semblance. Then I went for the kill on Juniper. I glided forward and went with the omni-slash. As soon as I touched her with my blade there was another pop. A field pulsed out of her body and slammed me into a wall.

"I warned you," she said. Then she shot me in the stomach, chest, and head.

Saffron landed next to me and jumped and slashed upwards and it sliced me across the chest. I stepped in and brought my blade down from shoulder to hip and knocked her into the ground. When she got to her feet there was a specter around her body. I stepped back warily. I was a long way from Limit and I had no idea how to touch Juniper, now Saphron had her specter, and I had no clue at all what Kolumbine could do.

I felt like I was in for an ass beating.

I leveled my weapon at Saphron and her eleven foot tall one winged monster. She smirked at me. She side-flipped at me and I flickered to the side and right into Kolumbine's pike. She sliced me deeply. I cross-slashed her body and delivered five punishing cuts. I wasn't immediately blown away so that was a good sign. I could touch her. Saffron kicked me in the back twice in a jumping double hit that rocked me into a metal wall. She snapped her fingers and that fizzly purple spell shot towards me. I dived out of the way and where it landed it splashed and burned in a giant flare.

I avoided the fuck out of that.

Saphron front-flipped over a panel of terminals and an Atlas personnel corpse. She flicked her blade out at me in a bubble of death. From the opposite direction the monster's claws swiped and they met in the middle in a fast sharp clap that caught me in the stomach and rocked me to the ground. She did an arcing side-flip and swept her blade 'over' her head while she was upside down mid flip. The monster stomped one leg down through the middle of her attack and it punched me straight through the deck I was on. The metal floor crumpled around me as I was shoved downwards.

I caught myself on the floor below and jumped back up the hole I came in. I tore upwards through the metal and back up a storey. I stepped in and bashed Saphron with my enormous sword. The monster was unhurt but it careened with her into the ceiling which she ricocheted off and to the floor.

Juniper stepped in on me and took two swings. I stepped back. I was unsure how to attack her. I brought my blade around and connected it with her body and again that field poured out of her and slammed me back.

"Figure it out yet?" She asked. Then she took four shots at me with her repeater. I blocked them all and blade-beamed her for want of something. It touched her and there was that field but it didn't reach me. I watched the field flex like a blown bubble and as it recoiled I stepped in and smashed her.

This time I hit her for real and I made her pay for it. Kolumbine got in my way next with her pike. I smacked it aside and Cross-Slashed her again. She flew back but she got an odd white glow to her.

I watched her carefully.

"Here we go!" She shouted. She crossed the distance between us in an enormous thrust that closed thirty feet in an instant. She pile drove me back into a bulkhead.

Saphron landed next to me and thrust three quick jabs with her blade but it was like artistry and the blade flickered with something purple between lightning and fire. The final stab had this pop to it that smashed me into yet another bulkhead.

Limit activated.

Kolumbine's next light speed thrust was slower this time comparatively and I clotheslined her head hard with my blade. The glow around her only intensified. At a guess I thought she could take a certain threshold of damage like I could. Then after that point she became much faster and maybe a touch stronger.

Juniper had some kind of counter attacking semblance that forced you to bait her into using it and then attacking for real.

And lastly was the elephant in the room: Saphron and her specter. She came at me with this dashing double kicked and the monster behind her lashed out with its long legs in perfect time with hers. I was forced backwards. I flipped over her in a floating leap. Then I changed directions in mid-air to avoid some shots from Juniper's repeater.

The real question was whether I held onto this Limit for the speed and strength buffs or if I went for the kill on one of them. Strictly speaking a prolonged fight would go in my favor. I could force them to retreat and prevent them from doing whatever they were up to. Probably bombing the satellite or destroying it somehow. That had to be stopped at all costs. That meant keeping the three sisters pinned down fighting me and they would eventually have to beat a retreat when Valean and Atlesian reinforcements showed up.

I just needed to keep them in a tight spot until then. The only one I could perhaps kill was Kolumbine. Juniper had her counter attacking semblance and Saphron had showed she was capable of something similar once before while her spirit was active.

I needed to hold on to this Limit for the speed buffs and maybe go for the kill if I saw an opportunity. They seemed wary of me with my semblance active. Kolumbine backed up and took a shot with her anti-material rifle.

I deflected the bullets off the edge of Crocea Mors and stepped in on her. I brought my weapon down on her and she blocked with her pike. I slowly lowered my weapon down on her.

Saphron jumped up at me and kicked at me with her feet in a twirling rising aerial. There were five distinct kicks that came out of it and one last massive upwards kick by the red legged specter with the blue wing. I stepped back to avoid that but only got closer to Kolumbine who took a swipe at me with her pike. I deflected that to the side with my enhanced speed and took three mighty swings at her from side to side to side. None of them connected because her pike outranged Crocea Mors.

Saphron took a swipe at me and the monster clawed from the other direction and it came around in a lightning fast clap. I dropped to avoid it and floated back to my feet and delivered an upward swing to her body that took her into the air. I pursued and before she could land I cut in a triple 'x' on her body by flying up to her. She flew back a little more and I meant to bring my blade down on her body in a massive overhead swing but Juniper stepped in and as soon as I touched her I was blown back.

That was getting obnoxious.

I threw a blade-beam at Juniper and side-flipped out of the way of a lunging slashing Kolumbine glowing white. I kicked Kolumbine in the chest and took a micro step forward and golf swinged my blade upwards into her chest and slammed her hard into the ceiling. The glow around her got even brighter.

Juniper sidestepped my blade-beam so I sent a second and chased it. She reflected it with her field and blocked me when I tried to cut her for it. She strained against me but I was terrifyingly strong with Limit active and I brought my weapon down on her and forced her to her knees. I kicked her in the side of the knee and sidestepped when that bubble blew out at me. Then I cut her in a diagonal slice from shoulder to hip and I really turned my hips into it and rocked her into the bulkhead.

Saphron approached with a single gunshot to the side of my head. Then she sort of wave-dashed in on me and fired again point blank. She lashed out with a single kick that was strong enough to pop me into the air. Then she reversed and swept her blade behind her and up at me. At the same time the monster clawed downward and the two met for a lightning fast sharp clap.

I hit a bulkhead hard enough to be stunned. She jumped and shot twice then dashed in again. I raised my weapon in a block because I was afraid of what she was capable of. She grabbed me and picked me up and slammed me into the ground. She jumped and delivered four twirling kicks that dragged me back down and she grabbed me again and threw me straight up. I bounced off the ceiling and she jumped and stabbed two quick rapid times with the monster providing a crackle between lightning and purple fire.

I floated to my feet and entered a hovering roll. I stabbed forward into Saphron's aura. I swept forward and carried her up through the ceiling. The purple monster faded from behind her as I deposited her on the floor above. Then I reversed and slammed use both back through it and smashed her into the bridge floor.

Kolumbine swept in with a massive swing at me. She seemed to be almost vibrating and when I blocked the enormous swing it still rang me like a bell even with Limit. She spun in two quick circles bringing her blade around on me twice in that time. I blocked but was buffeted by the first and the second sweeping cut smashed me in the chest and knocked me to the floor. I scissor kicked to my feet and with the fire of Limit Breaker around me I slowly walked towards Kolumbine.

She thrust with her pike and fired the rifle point blank. I sidestepped both and swung my sword down over my head with both hands. It smashed her on the left shoulder and knocked her to the floor.

Juniper side-flipped next to me to cover her twin. Our blades met once, twice, three times, then I feinted left and brought my weapon horizontally around at head height. I smacked her on the right side of the head and that field pulsed out of her but it was in the direction of my blade. I held onto it and used the momentum reversal to swing it around me and spin. I slashed her in left leg on the side of the knee. I swept her feet out from under her and I jumped forward. I kneed her before she could touch the ground to carry her along in a floating leap. Then I brought my weapon down with both hands in a massive overhead blow that meteored her into the floor. There was a pulse around her that destroyed a terminal and she didn't take damage from the fall but she did from the strike.

Saphron twisted in on me. I pushed her blades out of the way and shoved her back. She was much weaker without the specter behind her. Juniper grabbed Kolumbine and they hobbled quickly to the exit. I kicked Saphron in the chest and hovered between them and the door.

"Leaving? But we haven't seen each other in so long," I bit out.

"Saphron!" Juniper called.

"I'm thinking!" Saphron slid towards me legs first to trip me up and get a follow up but I hovered over it. Then to punish I brought my weapon around in that triple diagonal strike I liked to use as a hard punish.

Saphron froze and blue fire poured from her body with each hit but still even on the last she stayed still. The blue fire lashed out at me and knocked me back and the blue beast came back in full force. Saphron double dash kicked me and stepped in and grabbed me. She threw me up and jumped and did that twirling kick five times followed by a sixth upwards swung of the red and blue one winged beast.

I slammed hard into the ceiling. Saphron grabbed both her sisters and ran towards the windows of the bridge. She smashed it with a swipe and claw from the specter. Then she jumped and the blue monster beat it's one wing and the three took off. I flew after them but Saphron whipped around and hit me square with her spell and it burned me for a long lasting burning damage and blasted me back into the hanger.

I ran to the window but my sisters were gone. That had escaped me. But I did learn some things about them. That was a victory and they failed to bring down the satellite. I had won.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	149. The Girls Never Leave You Alone II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**Dear Cloud,**

**The Satellite is launching soon and that may make this letter irrelevant. We'll be able to speak to each other in a face to face manner. Not to mention we have a bit of a surprise for you. I won't spoil it here but I do look forward to seeing the look on your face when you realize. You have the juiciest expressions like that. **

**Hill set back the satellite but only slightly. This letter and the platform will be racing to meet you. And when it arrives I expect a video call for Ruby's sake. But I have said too much. **

**I hope Beacon is treating you well. I can only imagine teaching is good for you and giving you some temperance to your spirit. In some ways it has for me.**

**Enough for now. We shall see one another soon and be able to talk fully. This letter will tide you over until then.**

**Yours as a trio; Ruby and Weiss.**

Atlas ships arrived over Vale. It brought back bad memories. But with them came the satellite and communication was back online and international within fifteen minutes of their arrival. That's about when shit went down and I got the call from Noir and Lila. Then everything went downhill from there.

After the bombing and once the satellite was safe specialists landed and set to work repairing Beacon Tower. I was in the auditorium when they arrived with many of the students. I was there to greet them. In particular a white haired woman with ice blue eyes and a prominent scar on her eye. My jaw dropped a little as I took in her figure in her new grey and white dress with blue sash and tassels. She was as beautiful as when I left her. She was as beautiful as the day I first saw her. She was as beautiful as a frozen lake and she smiled at me with Atlas guards flanking her as she marched into the auditorium.

She looked around and took in the reconstructed olive and grey architecture. It had been in ruins when she was last here. Now it was rebuilt the same as before.

I mostly stared at her face and took in the way her dress hugged her hourglass curves. I wanted to cup the delicate pale skin of her cheek in one of my hands but I couldn't muster the strength to move towards her. She was jaw dropping and as womanly as I had ever seen her.

She smirked at me. She knew I was hypnotized. And in my paralysis I was humbled and trapped. A thousand terrors and I had the strength to move on but one confident smirk from my first crush and I was caught like a fly in a spider's web.

"Hello, Cloud." Weiss was in front of me. I should probably say something. She let out a little giggle behind her hand at me. Come on, think.

"Weiss… I…" I trailed off. My throat was dry. I felt so stupid in that moment. Surely I could think of something.

She waited patiently with that confident smirk - just waiting. Her sword was by her side in her gown. Her hair was done up in an enormous plait. It showed off her face with that distinctive scar.

"Professor? You know this person?" Rosé saved me by cutting in. "Who is she?"

I blinked dumbly.

"Yes indeed. Who am I, Cloud?"

"You're… you're teasing me. That's what you are."

"I can see why you did it as much as possible. It's a great deal of fun." So she admitted to the crime. That's got to count for something.

"Weiss this is Rosé. The girl I trained. I told you about her in my letters. Rosé this is Weiss… she's my..."

"You're what?" Rosé asked.

"Yes, you're what?" Weiss pressed practically singing.

"'Girlfriend' sounds so immature. But it works," I decided.

Weiss let out a content little hum up at me. "Hmm." She curved the sound upwards. She then got up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the lips. It was low and long. My hands fell to her waist to pull her a little closer. I grabbed her by the hips. I rubbed a small circle with my thumb on her pelvis. I bent down slightly and she leaned in and kicked up one foot as she did. There was no tongue but it was smooth and with meaning as I cradled her bottom lip between both of mine.

She moved to pull back and I released her at once - letting go of her hips. I just watched her spin away from me with that same alluring confidence.

What a woman.

She wasn't the same girl I had my first crush on, that was for certain. But I wasn't that same boy. I was a man. And maybe if I repeated that enough times I'd believe it. Come on Cloud. Pull yourself together. I mean good gods.

"You're not playing very fair…" I trailed off as I watched her sway her hips at me as she walked away.

"You want to talk about fairness?" She shot with a look backwards and that same godsforsaken smile.

I did not, I decided.

I followed after her.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was sent in correlation with my duties to Atlas Academy. I'm supposed to help repair the damage to Atlas's image from the fall. I'm to use any means necessary and that means starting with this school. I intend to help teach the politics class and begin to relieve pressure."

"You became a teacher?" I asked, sounding shocked.

"So did you. Color me and Ruby surprised to find that out."

"I thought you would be pleased. It's safer than what I normally get up to."

"I'm sure you found a way to make it suitably dangerous. Or do I miss my mark?"

I sighed and recollected recent events. She did not.

"I thought so," she fired up at me as we walked through a courtyard garden.

"Where are you staying?"

"Oh - in one of the ships unless someone has a better idea." I wanted to kiss that smirk right off of her beautiful face. The absolute audacity she had in smiling like that.

"Stay with me. Here. In my rooms. There's plenty of space."

"Should I? With you?" She was teasing me again. She reached out and ran a hand down my chest. "I think I could tolerate that." She leaned in close like she was about to kiss me. I shut my eyes and I swayed slightly on empty air. She laughed and pulled away. I widened my eyes to watch the woman swing away waywardly from me. The tease. How dare she. I would absolutely pay this back. It will not be forgotten. She was having fun at my expense and I found myself loving her for it.

"I have a dog too but he's well behaved. You'll hardly notice him. You're not allergic, are you?"

"Luckily for you I am not. I'm fond of dogs."

"He's not like Zwei. He's a big dog."

"I like them big and I like them small."

"He's like a really big dog."

"Well I hope you're looking after the poor creature."

"I'm an excellent caretaker. Just don't leave me around little kids."

"But I might want to one day. I know Ruby does. Who could say?"

"Um…" I managed.

Watching Weiss twitter toward me while we waltzed through the walkways and walled gardens of Beacon, I realized I desperately wanted to chase her and catch her.

"You really want to kiss me just now." She laughed like an angel. "That's too bad for you."

I snatched her hand by the petite wrist. The harness holding my sword rocked into my back. I pulled her to my chest and cradled her little body in my arms. She looked surprised for a second. I saw it. A flash of victory.

"You are a dreadful tease. I will make you pay for it."

Her eyelashes fluttered at me innocently and sultry at the same time. How did she do that? She had doe eyes and fuck-me eyes all at once. "Perhaps I'm looking forward to it. Have you considered that?"

I let out a low hiss.

I kissed her hard and sucked on her bottom lip. She opened her mouth slightly and the tips of our tongues ran against one another as we exhaled outwards in unison. She sighed into the kiss and leaned both arms around my neck. She hung off of me while I held her tiny form. I squeezed her hips tightly - so hard that she let out a pale ghostly moan. I drank in her sweet and creamy aura as our noses brushed against one another.

"Even without Ruby around?" I asked panting from the kiss.

"Do you think she and I stopped exploring one another when you left? Yes, Cloud."

That was about the hottest thing I'd thought of that month.

And I was still struggling to believe that Weiss was really here in front of me. It had been so long since I held or beheld the small huntress. Now she was here in Vale with me to potentially stay a while. Stay with me. In my room. The two of us. I got a little excited at the thought. She was mine. I was going to push her form down into the bed and take her as many times as I could. I was hungry in the pit of my stomach but not for a meal.

"I missed you, Weiss," I murmured into her lips.

"I missed you too. But how are you doing? Your letters indicated that things were bad where your health was concerned and your dreams had you all twisted up."

"I suppose the best thing would be to show you…" she stepped back and I pulled my shirt up to reveal the splotches of multicolored bruises. "I just bleed these days. I get deep pains inside me. I have a barrier which keeps my Mother at bay. I'm so scared all the time that it pushed her back. But it's so mixed with a luring grotesqueness that it's almost a pleasant sensation. I'm all messed up. I enjoy the pain that comes with my tactile hallucinations. What is pain? What is pleasure? They are neighbors in the brain you understand."

"You're in pain…"

"But I like it. So how bad could it be if I enjoy it."

"You've gotten screwed up by Salem messing with your brain." She stroked a hand against my arm to get me to lower my shirt. It was gentle and I could have resisted. But I didn't. I dropped it to cover my breast plate once more.

"Yeah, that's what I think too. She has me all turned around. But I'm fighting back. I've made no attempt to assault her own mind just like you asked. I don't know how I would do it. She's built a mighty rock wall between us to keep away my fear. I'm so scared that it threatens to drive us all mad. All nine of us. Or more mad as the case may be. I walk a razor's edge with it. But it's my best tool."

"It must be exhausting being so terrified all the time."

"It's become a close friend. I think I would miss it. It's the sort of fear that might keep you up at night. I hardly sleep. That's when I'm most vulnerable. I keep it to a minimum."

"That's not healthy."

"Neither is letting Mother into my head. I'm an easy target while I sleep. I also started using drugs again. I actually started before I left."

"When you were on those antipsychotics?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"No idea. I'm not a doctor."

Weiss just glared at me for a long beat.

"You enjoy making me worry about you. Admit it. You like it a little."

"I hate making you worry. You and Ruby both. I hated seeing you helpless to do anything about me in Atlas. That really sucked."

"So now we get to the real reason you left. You pretend that it was for our sake."

"I attacked you. That's why. If I had come at you both with my semblance I could have killed one of you. I can pretty much one shot anybody with my Limit Breaks now. I might have ripped you apart. I couldn't live with myself if I killed another person I loved. How would I survive? I had to leave and gather my strength and build my defenses in a place where I wouldn't have the chance to kill you. What was I supposed to do? I had to go. I'm sorry that hurt you but it was better than killing you. What would I have done with myself then?"

"You could never hurt me. Or Ruby. We both know that. It isn't you."

"That's not how it works. It is me. We flow together. Different branches of the same river. There was a time in my life when I killed people just because they lacked the power to stop me. I did that. Not Mother, me. I don't know how you can kiss me. Don't I disgust you? I'm a murderer. Just as much as any other one of Salem's agents."

"You've always been hard on yourself. Much too hard. It's not like you slaughtered civilians. Every person you've killed had a weapon in their hands. Right? That's not murder."

"I've tortured people."

"I tortured Don Corneo. I used my semblance to twist his arms. You're not alone in that. You seem content to forget that. We aren't so different that I can't see you and appreciate you. You goofball. You're so frustrating. How can you be so smart and so blind at the same time? Ruby and I can see the mistakes you've made and we love you anyways. We want the best for you. Aren't we it? Stop running from us. You can't hurt me. We know you're afraid of yourself but you don't have to be around us."

"I do have to be afraid. It keeps my Mother at bay. I actually do need to be terrified. If I'm not, that gives her an opening. And my fears are well founded. I could snap again. I could do it so easily. And who would stop me? I have so much power and I'm not stable. I'm always on the edge. I could fall once again without trouble."

"The fact that you're afraid of it is a good sign. The fact that you're afraid of your power is a sign that it's safe with you. Better with you than with some mad man."

I laughed. "You don't get it. I'm a mad man. I believe my mind is controlled by an alien monster goddess. That's a hallmark of schizoaffective disorder if not outright schizophrenia."

"But it isn't a delusion. Your mind really is under attack."

"That's difficult to prove."

"We believe you. We've seen the signs. Don't you dare turn your back on me again."

I sighed. Now how could I. She was practically begging but Weiss didn't beg. She didn't know how. She wanted me to stay beside her. What was I supposed to do? I could hardly turn on her again. And I didn't want to. Wasn't I more grounded? More safe? Could I risk it? I really wanted to. I wanted her to stay with me in my room. That sounded exceptionally pleasant.

"You know I don't want to… I want you to be with me. I'm just also… I'm just also exhausted. I want to rest. For the first time in what feels like years."

"Then let me lay beside you. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be teaching here along with you. You're not alone. Not if you don't force yourself. And let's be honest, you never wanted to be alone. That's why you left with your friend and picked up a trainee. Have a little faith, not in the gods who may be cruel, but in Ruby and I."

I led her into the building where the teachers had their rooms. I brought her to mine and opened the door for her. There was a spacious kitchen which had a large desk as well. There was a small dining table with four chairs. There was a leather brown sofa and a red love seat and a small purple chair around a fireplace with a glass TV. Then there was a back room with a queen sized bed and light green covers. The walls were painted olive grey like the rest of Beacon. Behind the desk was a tall window and another in the bedroom and there was a whole bathroom with a shower and bath.

Red perked up from the small bed I bought for him in the corner behind the desk.

"What was the dog's name again?" Weiss asked.

"Red XIII. Come here boy and meet Weiss."

Weiss bent down and scratched the dog's neck.

I was still standing in the doorway when I heard the click of heels behind me. I turned to see the headmistress.

"Ms. Schnee, I understand you will be joining us."

"Yes indeed. It's good to see you again headmistress," Weiss returned.

"I shall prepare quarters for you."

"That won't be necessary. I'll stay here with Cloud."

"I hardly think that's appropriate," Goodwitch declared.

"Well we are both adults, headmistress. It's none of your concern," Weiss countered politely.

"I see. Cloud failed to mention this to me when we talked about team RWBY. Color me surprised."

"Well it is a bit personal…" I defended myself a little.

"We got together in Atlas," Weiss went on. "I changed my mind about him in Mistral. He's dependable and I liked what I saw and as I said we are both adults. I will be ,staying here with him."

"I understand. Then allow me to welcome you back to Beacon, Weiss."

"It's a pleasure to be back. I missed these halls." She sighed a little and showed off her pale neck. So help me gods I was going to suck her neck until it turned purple.

Goodwitch paced away and shut the door behind us.

"So, where were we?" She asked.

I shoved her against a wall and kissed her hard. I picked her up and she wrapped her legs around me and let out a little moan.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	150. The Girls Never Leave You Alone III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The evening I spent with my girlfriend was fantastic. And again in the morning when I got up early. My dog would just have to wait on that run for a bit. When I came back from my morning workouts with my dog and the weights she was scrambling eggs in the kitchenette in my dorm. Or our dorm, as it were now. Weird to process that.

She threw her hands up in frustration as I sat down at the round dining room table. I immediately got back to my feet again to investigate her outrage. She had burned the eggs until they were a deep brown. She'd had the heat way too high.

"Need a hand?" I asked.

She sighed a little but nodded. "I tried. I tried and look where that got me."

"What did you try aside from the eggs?"

"I don't want to say."

"Now you have to tell me."

"I'd really rather not."

"Weiss, it's me we're talking about."

"Fine. I wanted to make you breakfast. Happy?"

"A little," I confessed. I gave her a teasing grin.

"You are laughing at me," she complained.

"Would I?" I asked.

"Yes. You would. It's not my fault. I never learned to cook anything."

"All those fancy servants coming back to bite you."

"Go ahead and keep laughing."

"Let me show you how it's done." I lowered the heat and scrapped the eggs off the pan into the garbage and cracked some new ones into it.

"But the higher heat cooks it faster, right?"

"It also burns it. You have to be patient and stir it. Give it a try."

She stepped in and stirred the eggs around with her spatula that I handed her.

"How much heat is too much?" She asked me.

"Just a nice medium is fine. No reason to blaze out."

"Where did you learn to cook?" She wondered.

"First of all we're scrambling eggs. Not making a cake. This is barely cooking. It's a half step below boiling pasta and above cooking rice. Second of all, Ren taught me. He knew how and picked up a little from him before you know…"I trailed off.

"He died?" She supplied.

"I was going to say I murdered him. But we can roll with what you said."

"Gods you're so depressing. You're honestly so lucky that you're cute."

"You think I'm cute?"

"Don't be dumb," she countered with a smirk.

"I'll try?" I endeavored.

"Do you think Ruby and I would have sex with you if you were ugly?"

"Maybe I just have a hell of a personality."

"It's not bad. Could just use some work. Like the depressing bits. They irk me."

"You don't look or sound irked."

She brought my face down to hers in both of her hands. It was a low smooth and long kiss that made her clutch at my chest.

"Darling?" I whispered, against her lips. "Your eggs are burning again."

"Oh shit!" She swore and I listened to it with a certain hunger. She didn't swear often but when she did it was savory. She whipped around to begin and scrape the eggs around the pan. They would probably be fine. Good enough to eat. And they weren't the only thing in the room that was scrumptious. I took my seat and watched Weiss's butt in a pair of tight white shorts and a purple shirt of mine. She looked incredibly sexy in that. Her bare feet paced around the hard wood floor of the kitchenette. Given half an opportunity I would rock her world for the third time in twelve hours. She looked delicious.

"So now what do you do in the mornings?" She asked. She set a plate in front of me with some eggs and two pieces of toast. I piled the eggs onto the buttered toast and it was good in combination.

"I work private tutoring with anybody who comes to me, mostly. Sometimes I don't have any appointments but I do this morning."

"Oh yeah? One on one sessions?"

"Pretty much. Just in case they don't want to discuss their semblances with someone else."

"With all the young girls around here…"

"I'm not sure what you think you're implying but I get as many guys as girls in these sessions."

"Is that what you think? Because I doubt it."

"Maybe a few more girls than guys but not many."

"Do you know why that is?"

"I know why you're going to say it is. And you're wrong. You're biased."

"I'm biased? Because I love you? I suppose that's certainly sort of true but kind of a warped way of looking at things."

"Not everyone sees me in the light that you do," I countered. "Some people probably see me for the fucked up shitfest I really am."

"You are not. And I'm beginning to think you have some body dysphoria. Do you not know how good looking you are?"

"I'm not that good looking. I'm not like you members of team RWBY."

"You should just stick to Ruby and I?" She said. She leaned on one palm. She was smiling at me so I know that she wasn't really insulted.

"Yang is incredibly good looking. I mean you and Ruby are both my sweethearts and I wouldn't trade either of you for the world but I'm also not blind."

"Except in regards to yourself. Then you're blind as a bat evidently."

"How is Ruby anyways?"

"She so chipper. I don't know how she does it but she's matured a little and retained her optimism. It's wonderful. But you'll see her again soon. We both will. It'll be nice for the three of us to spend some time together. You simply must promise me to visit Atlas and see her again. I won't take no for an answer. You need to see Ruby again and you want to anyways. You say you're stronger mentally. You have no excuse to not see her. She's spending time with Penny and she loves that. But she also loves you, Cloud. It's time you came back to her."

I was quiet. What could I say to that. Was I really stronger? Was I safe to be around? I wanted to be. But I couldn't really be sure until my Mother's next attempt. Can I really be trusted?

"I want to see her. I'm glad that you're here with me now as well. I want… I've been burrowing her dream. It's big enough for all three of us and I think I want that. It's just also pretty big and scary in its own right. Isn't it?"

She nodded at me but said nothing. So I went on.

"But I still don't know if I'm passing along my darker aspects. Don't I have a responsibility to withdraw and eliminate myself from the gene pool? What if it's the worst parts of me that get passed on? That's why it's such a scary dream. It's massive and I don't know how to handle it. So many things could go wrong. What will I do then?"

"You should remember that you're not alone for one thing. Ruby and I will be with you every step of the way."

"My Mother is like a snake. She'll slither inside through the smallest gap. I can't have children while she still reigns. At that same token I have no idea how to bring her down."

"That's where your idea to infiltrate her mind comes from," Weiss observed.

"In part. Take the fight to her for once. Catch her on the back foot and push in. It could work."

"It's also very dangerous. Can't you live your life with us safely? Why does it have to be her or you? Come be with us. You send letters and you invite me in so you're not going away from us. Can't you compromise and say 'I might not beat her, but it doesn't matter?'"

"No. I can feel the pull towards her. It's her or me and the way things are looking it will probably be her. I'm losing time faster than she is. She has only to wait. Then I will be nothing at all. She can play things slow. She can afford to. I have to risk so much more if I ever want hope of Ruby's dream."

"You always make things so hard on yourself." Weiss was smiling softly. My eyes flickered from her lips to her ice blue eyes. She was so gorgeous. If only I knew back then what I know now. Except I would have worshipped the ground she walked on, then. More than I already had was the point. That would have done me no favors. Weiss wanted equals. She saw me as such. That was disorienting and I nearly felt a wave of motion sickness. In what world was I Ruby or Weiss's equal? I was this wretched thing that had crawled into the world from out of a test tube. I was nothing like the brave women in my life. I didn't dare to think that.

"I wish that you could see the sort of person I became after I killed Ren and Nora and before I found you."

"I believe that it was _I_ who found _you_," she pointed out. "And I did see parts of it. I saw the things you did. You have got to learn how to forgive yourself. Ruby and I don't care about that. Well we do but only in so far as it hurts you. Can't you see that you're doing at least some of this to yourself and it doesn't have to be that way."

"So what do I do?" I wondered.

"You move on and live with yourself. You don't think that I also have regrets. I just don't let them hold me back like you do with yours. Can you see that you're causing a part of the problem? Can you see that this is the only way to fix it?"

"Yes," I breathed. "I understand. I'm a part of the problem."

"Oh good lord. Don't take that and run with it. I'm just saying that not everything is as hard as you want it to be. It can be better and you know the way how because I'm telling you it right now. Ruby and I will be there for you one hundred percent. And if you decide you don't want us we'll understand that too."

"I want you both," I claimed. "I want that dream."

"You want to have babies with me? Then?" She asked. "Not just Ruby's?"

"You and I have never talked about it… is that something you want? Kids?"

"I asked you first."

"I don't know. It's so risky."

"In a perfect world with Salem gone what would you say?"

"I'd say yes. How many would you want?"

"Maybe one or two. Not like Ruby's huge family. She wants three or four. I can't imagine that."

"That's a lot in total. Potentially six. Me, father to six children. Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard?"

"Not really. Not if you think you're not up for it. And Ruby wants whatever you will give her. Two, three, one. Whatever. She's in love with the idea of a big family and between the three of us it will be pretty large already."

"Six kids…"

"You're really hung up on that," she observed with a sly smirk.

"It's a lot. What the fuck am I going to do with so many children?"

"Love them. Raise them in a world without Salem. Sounds idyllic."

"Yeah that's the kicker. Isn't it? Salem has got to go. She's a problem and I can't find any solutions and I have been looking hard. I can defeat her but never vanquish her. That's a real issue. She'll cling to life even if I cut her into pieces like the old gods of myth. She'll linger. Still, she'll linger."

"That bothers you?"

"It scares the shit out of me. Yeah it bothers me. It doesn't bother you?"

"I didn't say that. So what happens now?"

"Now… now I go lift weights. You're welcome to come with me."

"I think I just may."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Weiss wore a tight shirt over her sports bra and tight black leggings. I'm pretty sure she wore it just to tease me. It was working and it was enormously distracting and I barely got through my workout. I couldn't exactly tell her that she was around looking like a snack with her midriff exposed because that would just encourage her. Not that I didn't want to encourage her per se. I was just tired of walking around with a halfsie.

Weiss was then off to teach her own class and I went to my office. Rosé was waiting for me there. She looked impatient, tapping her foot with her arms folded.

"Did we have an appointment?" I asked her.

"No. I just wanted to talk."

"What about?" I wondered.

"You and the Schnee heiress. How long have you two been an item?"

"I don't know. Nine months. Maybe a shade longer. Maybe a bit further than that as well if you really want to stretch things. I've known her for years. We actually went to school here at Beacon together. And it's ex-heiress, now."

"You kept saying your romantic life was complicated. That didn't look complicated to me."

"Well… the thing about that is hard to explain. And it's because there's another girl involved with the two of us. A woman now, really. Her name is Ruby and Weiss and I are both with her as well. It's complicated. Like I said. It's not something I thought I would need experience with in my life. It just sort of happened."

"So you and these two girls are a trio."

"Pretty much," I agreed.

"And it's been them that you wrote all those letters to."

"Every single one of them. Rosé, you're acting very strangely. Can I get you a glass of water? You seem positively furious."

"I'm not angry," she bit out. She certainly sounded angry.

"Okay," I hedged, feeling stupid. "Then what's eating you? Why are you waiting outside my office at seven in the morning to ask me about my girlfriends?"

"What was so complicated about that that you couldn't have explained it to me all the time we were traveling together? Instead I always got cryptic replies. Why couldn't you have told me about it sooner before… before… before any of this happened?"

Was she just upset that I hadn't told her, then? I suppose that made sense. We were friends after a fashion. She would have wanted to know.

"I never wanted to explain it because it is complicated. It's the most complicated thing in my life. I'm sorry I never told you but it was never because I thought that you wouldn't understand or anything like that," I tried to appease her a little. Here I was, a teacher, and I was trying to supplicate to my student.

"It's not that that I don't understand. It's you. It's almost like you did it on purpose. Just kept me in the dark."

What the fresh fuck? What did she mean by that?

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Rosé I have no idea what's going on with you right now. I always made it clear that I had some bullshit going on. That's just my life. I don't know what you're looking for or what you want from me. What's gotten into you?"

"How can you be so smart and so dumb?"

"That's about enough Rosé. Get out of my office until you've gotten ahold of yourself. Until then, au revoir."

She glared at me thunderously but she left all the same. She slammed my door on her way out.

Now did I tell Weiss about this? She would probably laugh at me but then at least I would know what was going on by the end of things.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	151. Proud Ice Queen XI

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Weiss PoV)

Seeing Cloud again was enormously pleasant. Something inside me cooed and whispered 'I missed you.' I would hardly make such a noise aloud. But it was true. I had missed him a great deal. And now we were back together. It only cost Ruby. That was a short term circumstance, I was sure. I would be back with her soon and it would be the three of us.

Cloud had talked about Ruby's dream and how he would probably go along with it if he had the real opportunity. That was something that I also wanted. I had had the time to think about it. When Ruby first brought it up it took me by surprise but then I had the time to get used to the idea. And I fancied it a little. It would be hard but Cloud thought he really could take Salem down. That could make the dream a true possibility.

For a certain definition of taking Salem down. He made it clear he could defeat her but not vanquish her. That could really change things up for us. Without Salem in the picture we could sit back and enjoy our remaining years with him. We could do whatever we wanted. I wasn't one hundred percent sure what that was.

It obviously entailed time spent together with the three of us. But beyond 'be together' there wasn't much of a plan. I wasn't super happy about that but then again Cloud probably wasn't super happy about dying. None of us were happy about that. Something to keep in mind while talking with him in the future. It wasn't his fault that his Mother was screwing with his mind and that his father was messing with his body. It just sort of was and it was something the three of us would have to come to terms with. All three of us together. Not him alone anymore. He needed to get that through his thick head.

Ruby had been right when she said there was something in him that wanted to see us laughing at his body.

We just didn't want to. And we had seen some of the horrible awful side to him as well and that really didn't change things for us. We still wanted him and each other. He had no reason to hide from us now. So we should obviously refuse to let him. Ruby had been all about not giving him space from the beginning and now I was inclined to agree with her now. Especially if he was really getting better and even if he wasn't we wanted to be with him.

Kill him with real affection and destroy his self hatred. That was the plan. He could never be a good father if he was holding himself back and that was something Ruby and I both wanted. It was time for him to accept us and I thought that living with him would give me the perfect opportunity to really do something about it.

He couldn't run or hide from me now. He couldn't set off on another journey without me. And if he wanted to then that was just too bad. He was mine. And he wanted me to be his. In his passions he had nearly marked my neck with little bruises. I had to make him stop in his attempts to discolor my pale skin. And I really hadn't wanted to. It felt so good when he kissed along my jaw and down the side of my neck. But I had to stop him from making any real blemishes but that had only seemed to encourage him. He left marks all along my back instead. They were little signs of the passion he felt for me. And I would be damned if I was going to be without it again.

But enough about that. It was time to teach. Ruby had really been the one to talk me into it while I was bored up in Atlas. Even I could get a little stir-crazy. She convinced me that I could instead work for the Academy I was locked inside of. She was always doing that. Finding the half full side of every glass.

But eventually she would run out of work up there in Atlas.

So Ruby would have to come here. I'd send her a message and soon as she got the chance she would come down and be with us. And Cloud would just have to deal with the consequences of his actions once Ruby got her hold of him.

I was alternating days that I was teaching with the other politics instructor. It wasn't a super big deal. I made my way to the front of the class. My fist class of the day was with the first years. I spotted the young girl Cloud had trained in the back row. She was with her team. And didn't that bring back memories of the time I had spent here with my little family.

I hadn't known about Cloud back then. Things sure had changed and we're so different now. He had still been Jaune back then. He had been constantly pursuing me and chasing me. Maybe things weren't so different except now I liked him chasing me and following as he had the day before. I liked making him chase me and teasing him until his passions overflowed. It made me feel powerful in a queer manner.

It was so strange the way things had played out.

"Class, your attention please," I requested politely. Broadcasting my voice from the front of the lecture hall, I took in the sight of the bright faces. Some distrust was there. Some unfamiliarity with the new teacher was to be expected

"I'm Professor Schnee of Atlas Academy. I'll be assisting in your education in politics," I went on.

"Why do we need some Atlas specialist teaching us?" Some kid in the front row blurted out. "My Mom was killed in Black Out Day. Not by Grimm but by Atlas machines. Why the fuck should I listen to you now."

Okay, rocky start, I do confess. Did I give the boy detention because he swore at me or did I get right down to the heart of the matter?

Both, I decided.

"That will be detention for your course language. But I shall address you as well. Atlas does accept full responsibility for the hack which led to the machines running rampant. I am here because Atlas's and Vale's ties have no reason to fall into disrepair over the tragedy that was Black Out Day."

I paused and leaned back against the desk at the front of the room. I flicked my long hair back behind me in its enormous braid from over my shoulder.

"This isn't the first time Atlas and Vale have struggled together. Have you all been taught about Mountain Glenn?" I asked the class. There was a general chorus of disagreement.

"Mountain Glenn was a major expansion attempt made by Vale with Atlas support and investment. It was to be the creation of a whole city between the two kingdoms. Something that joined us both together. A tunnel was even made all the way to Vale so people could work and live in either city and commute back and forth by train. It was a lot of work and a lot of investment and much like the most recent Vytal Festival it all went so wrong," I lectured.

I was getting into my rhythm now. I wanted to make the point that tragedies had happened in the past but Atlas's and Vale's connections could remain close. I wanted to focus less on the tragedy and more on those ties.

"Grimm flooded the new settlement in a tide and the city had to be abandoned. It's still abandoned to this day. As hunters you will deal with tragedies. They happen. People will die under your protection. If your other teachers tell you differently they are lying. You cannot save everyone and the bigger the mistake that gets made the more lives are lost. And that is what Black Out Day was. A mistake on Atlas's part that Vale paid the price for. There's no denying that. But just as before with Mountain Glenn Atlas and Vale don't have to become enemies because a few people found an exploit and used it to kill thousands of people."

"As the future leaders of Vale's protectorate, it's absolutely critical that you recognize where you have allies. Even if past events make things seem unsightly. And they are unsightly. There can be no denying that."

"Atlas and Vale both want the same thing. Closer cooperation for security and economic and technological reasons. We shall discuss more in depth what Vale and Atlas both have to offer the other kingdoms at a later juncture."

"Rebuilding is hard. It's much easier to burn bridges and cut everything out. But alone each kingdom is weaker. Especially and including Atlas and Vale. No economic support, no energy trade, no military support, no communication, all these things make a state naked and vulnerable. That's why Atlas and Vale have both decided I should teach here. That's why Atlas worked so hard on getting international communication back up and running. That's why Vale is working so hard on rebuilding and relying on it's network of allies."

"And I'm not an Atlas Specialist. I am a teacher at Atlas Academy. Before that I trained to be a huntress here at Beacon. I'm hardly a hardcore militarist mule."

"Now on to the strengths and weaknesses of Vale and Atlas. Atlas has a great deal of dust reserves and technology. Vale citizens know all to well how an overdependency on technology may very well be Atlas's major weaknesses. Vale doesn't share that aspect towards technology. This means they have to do things the old fashioned way. This is a strength in its own right but could easily be turned against the kingdom. During the Great War Vale and Atlas were enemies. But you can see well how they were able to play off one another's strengths in the decades that followed. This led to a tradition of the states being close allies."

"It isn't difficult to imagine what each have to gain. Atlas can sell technology and dust and Vale can sell foodstuffs, commercial goods, and intellectual property which isn't always technology based. Culture and the arts are critical to any standing nation and not just because partaking in them declines the Grimm but also to that nation's overall health. Everyone got hurt on Black Out Day. Literally everyone on the planet. Technology like that boosts our carrying capacity and without it a lot of people died. Not just in Vale but all over the world. The world needed the new Vytal Satellite. The world could also benefit from Beacon tower being rebuilt. And it's really not a question of 'why' so much as a question of 'how fast.'"

"So I hope that answers introductory questions and establishes why I, as and Atlas Academy teacher, am working under Glynda Goodwitch. With preliminaries out of the way we can move on with the lesson. We are going to discuss the new satellite and what it means for the world."

"The satellite was made out of the old Vytal Festival Stadium and is kept aloft be wells of gravity dust. It allows the satellite to go higher than the Grimm can reach. It serves as a proxy for the other towers. A stand in should any of them fall to keep the network online and broadcasting. The satellite can move to the affected area and take the role of the missing tower in just a matter of days. It took no small amount of investment bon Atlas's part. You can see how much Atlas values communication. In a vacuum Atlas suffered a lack of culture and the arts. Vale normally exports movies and cultural exchange. Without music and the arts people get sad. They do. Vale is the primary exporter of such things across the world. Without those exports and with what happened on Black Out Day all the kingdoms were injured and none so much as Atlas which lacks music and that sort of culture in comparison to Vale. The loss of the fleet was little in comparison to that."

I reminded them that Atlas lost a great deal in Black Out Day. Vale was the hardest hit but it was hardly alone. Everyone everywhere had been struck that day. It was hard to remember and easy to forget that. Especially in the context of Atlas machines killing civilians. That was a big problem. But there was nothing to be done about it now except to move forward.

"Grimm fell on all the kingdoms in wave after wave and put a great strain on the population of hunters. Hunters are already overworked and under a great deal of stress. PTSD is common for hunters and that can lead to psychotic features. And you should be aware of the threat a rogue huntsman can pose to any kingdom. Any one in this room could wipe out entire villages especially while communication was down and nobody would have been able to stop you. It happened a lot with bandits out in the Grimm lands recently. You may have heard of the unification of the bandit tribes into the Branwens. Raven Branwen was able to make portals so she could bypass the communication issues involved in running a multicontinental empire. Every once in a while an ace appears in the wild. Like Raven Branwen and these are the sort of threats that make whole kingdoms shudder. But they aren't alone. Raven Branwen was a threat to Mistral and Vale both. Together they worked to oppose her strength even with communication down. That was absolutely critical. In the end it was not the kingdoms who brought down Raven but it was a huntsman who now works for Vale: Cloud Strife."

It always came back to Cloud or his mother. No matter how much I tried to escape it that was the fact of the matter. Cloud was too entrenched in every day happenstance and current events. He surfed on the waves of the future and drifted along bringing order in his wake to this lost planet.

It was so very strange how he had become the best of us from the worst of us but I suppose that was just the nature of Limit Breaker. It allowed him to go beyond time and time again and pass by his older peaks to rise above even them.

"The occasional ace can be drawn on either side and Professor Strife also once served in the Atlas military. They are hardly a bunch of evil sycophants. Most are just people. Like Vale's standing army and guard, personnel in the Atlas military are just common men and women doing their best. They deserve your respect because many of them don't have aura of the training you do but they still put their lives on the line every single day to hold back the tide of Grimm. The Grimm are always the true enemy. Not one another. In trying times and when tragedy strikes we are so quick to blame one another. The actions of a few misguided individuals can bring us all to ruin by destroying the ties between kingdoms. It is imperative that we not allow them to succeed in this regard. We should not allow them to bring us down and split us up because we all become weaker individually."

"And I think that's all the time we have for today. Come see me for your detention assignment," I addressed the young man who had spoken out of turn at me and dismissed the rest of the class. They went all filing towards the door and out of the room with low wakeful murmurs. Hopefully I had succeeded if only a little today. There was still so much towk to be done.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	152. Gainsborough VI

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Rosé PoV)

I lounged in the library with my team. We had exams coming up. Our first round of them and we could all use the time to learn things.

"Did you get problem 'c?'" Pine asked me.

"It's theorem 1.5.4 in the textbook," Yuma cut in before I could answer. She looked positively bored and struggling to cope. She'd never really attended a school before this one from what I could gather and the mindset was hard to pick up very quickly. Beacon was certainly rigorous and it took some effort from even the smartest book learned people like Fox.

I thought she was doing well considering where she started. She had to work extra hard and I knew that she was stressed about most of her classes beyond a healthy threshold. I wasn't sure how to help her cope either. I was barely keeping up with the classes myself and I didn't have any advice beyond 'spend more time studying' and Yuma already spent plenty. She could really use a break. There would be a few days off after midterm and the dance.

The dance…

I'd hoped to invite Cloud to dance with me while I was wearing some pretty little number. But that had been blown out of the water along with so many other little plans. And some big plans as well, granted.

He was involved. With two girls. He was poly. Maybe demi and maybe straight. I had had a few days to cool off my searing temper but I was still boiling beneath the surface waters. He just had never told me and then I'd gone on dreaming. He probably wasn't about to leave two girls for me. He had more history with them than even I had with him. The outlook was bleak and my heart was broken a little. Another woman had already laid claim to my prize and I had become besotted with someone beyond my reach. It had probably been too much to hope for from the very start. I mean, my life wasn't a romance novel. He had never been about to whisk me away with him.

I had late night fantasies about the man that were far too inappropriate to ever share in detail. Now that was all crushed. Gone. I had been wasting my time. Under my anger was a deep sad well of depression. I clung a little to my anger rather than be dragged down into those melancholy waters. Anger kept me sharp and focused. It was easier to blame him and be angry than feel that deep hurt. I had loved and lost and I was paying the price.

I knew Peach had been miffed when she heard the news as well.

"_Does he have a ring on his finger?"_ She had asked.

"_Well, no, but they're together."_ I had told her.

"_Then this isn't over. I'm not going to give up so easily."_ She shot back with a little fire.

I wish that I could feel some fire. Instead I just felt soggy on the inside. Like wet tissue paper. And the wrong thing at the wrong time causing the right torsion would tear me. I wanted to cry but that would be too undignified. As a princess it was never my place to break down. But I was heartbroken. I wanted to curl up somewhere cold and just lay still for an indeterminate amount of time. I just wanted to stop feeling so fragile.

Cloud had been a heartthrob. I'd gotten my heartthrobbed. Peach had too even if she didn't show it. Suddenly Weiss Schnee had shown up and stolen the blue ribbon. I couldn't fault her taste. And the fact she was beautiful and probably talented and smart was just rubbing it in. And on top of that there was another girl I had to compete with who was probably equally amazing or, dare I dread it, even more so. And I would have to outdo them both? One was already too much. Two was just insurmountable entirely. That wasn't fair. I deserved an opportunity. I deserved a little hope. I couldn't help but be jealous of and dislike the new politics teacher.

Couldn't I just have one thing? Just one? Weiss Schnee had to have it. And she had to be drop dead gorgeous. It's not like I could be angry that she liked or loved Cloud. I liked and loved Cloud. I saw what there was to like in him. She had just… she'd gotten there first. She'd beaten me to the punch by so much I never really had a prayer. And there was a whole other girl. An entire girl on top of Weiss Schnee, the once but no longer heiress. I didn't have a chance.

He had always avoided talking about his romantic life. And his family. I had hoped it was just a touch of added mystery. Not a whole two women in his life. Weiss Schnee had real curves and a face that caught men's eyes. She had a full woman's body where I was just a girl. She made me feel like a dumb kid just through her prescence alone. That bit so deep. She had his eye in the places and ways I dreamed about one day possessing myself. She had that _now_. So, even though it wasn't really fair of me, I hated Professor Schnee. Gods what a bitch. I found myself looking for reasons to hate her. The way she spoke. How she held herself. The way she walked. It was all so pristine like clear cut glass. She'd been trained in etiquette and how to walk and talk. It was artificial. But then I had been taught that same sort of etiquette. I couldn't hate her unless I hated myself and I found myself disliking myself more and more. I spiraled inward and downward.

This bitch had her claws in my man. My man. And there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it. I had wanted to share a dance with him so badly. Now that dance was probably hers. As it always had been. And I was so furious with Cloud as well. If only he had told me from the start he had lovers. If only he had let me know that he was taken. But that wasn't fair either because I probably would have started liking him anyways. And like Peach said, there was no ring on his finger. This game wasn't over yet. It didn't have to be. I could find my way into his heart and beat there steadily. I wanted to be inside him and I wanted him to be inside me. But the dirty, man grabbing Schnee was already comfortably at home in his heart. She'd put up furnishings and moved in furniture and now she dazed in bed there and slept soundly. That was where I was supposed to be. And by what right was he her's? I heard that they shared a dorm here on campus. She could have gotten her own rooms. She could have stowed herself away on one of those godforsaken airships. But no. She was sharing a bed with my man. And deep down I knew that he had never been my man. But still, that was my man. It didn't make a lot of sense. But I was uncomfortable.

Oh gods. I bet they had had sex. I bet she had fucked him here at Beacon in those shared rooms. I bet he moaned her name as he released inside her. Motherfucker. That hurt. I thought about it a little. Then I thought about it a lot. And no matter how much I thought about it it just kept hurting. It was like barbed wire around my lungs and it made me ache to breath. Motherfucker. I bet he made love to her. I bet he made love to her and he didn't even think about me.

Ouch.

His dance, his bed, his dog, his body: all of it was somebody else's.

Motherfucker. I had been too late from the start. Did that make it hurt more or less? There were two of them. Did that make it hurt more or less?

All I knew was it made it hurt a lot.

"Are you alright?" Pine asked me.

"Just fine."

"Yeah, okay."

"What?"

"You're thinking about Professor Strife."

"So? Sue me."

"You need to get laid."

"I seriously want to."

"Not by him. There are seriously dozens of guys you could choose from."

"I don't want them."

"You're tearing yourself up."

"So she has her eyes on the money," Peach cut in. "Big deal."

"He's taken. You both need to get over it."

"No ring," Peach reminded her.

"Come off of it," Pine continued. "Don't encourage her. Everyone loves and loses sometimes. It sucks but you've got to face it like anything else. He has a woman."

"Two women," I corrected. "Evidently the girls are both bi or demi and are at least poly and interested in each other and him."

"Okay. So there are two women. You have to move on. There are plenty of guys."

"Not like him," I pointed out.

"And you expect us to find a guy within our age group? Guys our age are so immature and quick to infatuation. I've dated guys my age. Guys my age don't know how to treat me. They don't know how to touch me. They just want to work out or play video games. I'm not interested and Rosé is smart to not be interested either."

"How are you two going to compete with Weiss Schnee? And another girl? How? Seriously? Find a different guy who's older if you like that but don't wreck someone else's home. Yuma, cut in here any time," Pine ordered.

"I like older guys too," Yuma said quietly.

"Oh don't tell me Peach was right about you and him."

"He saved my life. He's a real man. Having Weiss Schnee swoop in out of nowhere sucks… but we do have to give it up."

"Well at least you're reasonable about your little crush," Pine acknowledged.

"What about the chase? It's still afoot. The hunt is still going on," Peach disagreed.

"You guys. Did you see him follow after her? He's head over heels in love with the woman. Yeah I thought he was hot too but he's taken. The Schnee has him. You have to get over it."

"He didn't stop being hot just cause he has a girlfriend," Peach went on.

"Will you listen to yourself?"

"I'm going to get a dance out of him if it's the last thing I do," I said. "We're friends at least. Dances between friends are a thing."

"Oh gods. You're serious."

"Yeah. I'm serious."

"You want to dance with him? In front of his girlfriend?"

"Yeah. Get some, I'm going to ask him for a dance too," Peach agreed. "The chase is still on, girls. It's time to see who is a woman."

"Weiss Schnee is a woman," Pine pointed out. "She's going to make you look foolish. And that's not counting that there is a whole entire other woman waiting in the wings. He isn't going to give that up because of you. Schnee will be clever and aggressive. She'll be ready."

"No ring," I pointed out. "If they really had dibs there would be a ring. There's not a ring on any of his fingers. If they wanted him they should have put a ring on him."

"No ring. You go princess," Peach cheered. "I know what I like and I want to get a kiss out of him. Come on Yuma. It's not over yet."

"I don't know… I don't think it's a good idea… it's another woman's man. Are you really comfortable doing that?"

"Fuck yeah I am. It's just a dance. Then it's just a touch. Then it's just a kiss. That's the playbook," Peach said.

"Not for any other guy but I have to shoot my shot. I have to try. This isn't just some dude. This is the real thing," I agreed.

"I don't think you know what you're getting into. I think you're setting yourself up to get hurt and for failure," Yuma teetered nervously. "This is serious. What you're doing and what you're proposing is serious."

"Thank you Yuma. At least you're seeing straight instead of stars," Pine chorused. "Do you really think Schnee is going to let you do whatever you want and put your hooks in him? Even if she's not explicitly ready for this, she is going to be able to handle some upstart girls with straying eyes and thoughts. And I do feel I have to mention this again. There is another woman. On top of Weiss Schnee who is bad enough there is a whole other woman to this thing. You need to think this through. He's already a lucky man with Schnee. He is even more lucky than even that. He's not going to give that up. At the end of the day he's a straight or demi guy who already found not one but two people. You two just can't compete with that. No matter how good you are it isn't good enough. Schnee would be too much for you to reasonably expect yourselves to compete with. There is another woman out there somewhere. You need to face reality."

"I didn't work this hard to not shoot my shot. I'm already hurting. I'm taking the shot," I countered. "I'm getting that fucking dance."

"What then? Seriously," Pine was relentless.

"We worry about that if and when we get that far," Peach cut in. "Baby steps. I'm with Rosé. This game isn't over and somebody better put Schnee on alert. Because I'mma comin."

"Schnee isn't going to just do nothing. She made him chase her. She lured him out and walked right into his rooms. She has him eating out of her hand. She shares his fucking bed."

"You don't think I know that?" I asked.

"You're really talking like you don't. She has a plan. She has another girlfriend involved in this. I know a crafty bitch when I see one. Schnee has plots. She likes him enough to share him with another girl. She isn't going to let you in on that or ruin her plans. She will absolutely shut you down at the dance and cut you off at the pass. She will smell you coming a mile away."

"And if I do get the dance?"

"Yeah? What if he does let us dance with him? And you too, Yuma?" Peach wondered.

"I… I don't know. Maybe I would dance with him if I had the chance…" Yuma mumbled.

"You shouldn't dance with him even if you get the chance and I'll tell you why. You should be even more scared if you get the chance to dance with him because Schnee will have allowed it. It will be a trap. The honeypot will be baited. It will be a feint or empty movement. Getting a dance will be fake pressure on him that she is expecting and ready for or she won't even let you touch him. Schnee has been ten steps ahead of you from the start. She won't give up her advantage unless you absolutely are able to force her. And she is smart. She's not stupid, anyone can tell that. She's the youngest Professor to ever teach at Atlas Academy or Beacon when we all thought he was. She knows that it's possible that you exist even if she doesn't know who you are. If you get a dance you should be even more worried because she will have you in her sights after that. This may be a game to you but it isn't to her," Pine analyzed like a fucking tournament match between fighters.

"It's not a game to me. I want him," I disagreed. "And I want that fucking dance."

"You're still thinking like a schoolgirl with a crush, though. Schnee isn't just winning she has already won. You'll give yourself away and it will all be for nothing because she's not fucking around. The dance is the perfect opportunity to bait you out and crush you. And you won't even be able to say you didn't know because I just warned you. You won't even be able to say that you didn't know to her if she confronts you because she's not dumb. He might believe that it was just a dance between friends but she will most certainly be able to tell if you're trying to make a move. It will be a trick."

"How should I do it then?" I wondered.

"You should give up, Rosé, Peach, Yuma, all of you girls. I want the best for you all and pinning after another woman's man is just going to get you hurt. I'm telling you; if you get the dance you should be even more worried than however worried you are now."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	153. Momento I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I lit a candle over the dining room table. I set out two plates of pasta that I cooked in cream with chicken. Next I poured two glasses of white wine. I let the lights dim and watched the sun set through the big windows to my dorm. The door opened behind me and Weiss walked in. She looked almost like she'd been in battle. Some threads of her hair were sticking up and away from her braid. Her cheeks were a little puffy like she'd been rubbing at her face a little. My dog walked up to her and panted. She abandoned herself and absolutely laid down on the floor and started petting the dog tiredly.

"Long day?" I asked.

"Bite me, Cloud."

"You very rarely let me," I pointed out. "What happened?"

"The distrust between Vale and Atlas runs so much deeper than I thought. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't this bad. People died and have grudges to bear. I have no idea how I'm going to heal these wounds. But it's up to me."

"I'm not a healthy example of letting things go. I tend to be obsessive. I'm not sure how to help you but I am here to lend a hand if you need anything."

"Until you run off again," she shot at me. It was a hit, a devastating attack. There was no real escape from it. I had to face it.

"I'm tired of running. Mother's reach encompasses the entire world. There's nowhere for me to run. And for once I feel like I have some real control. That's not going anywhere. Come sit with me. I made us dinner."

"Smells good," she adorably mumbled from where she buried her head in the dog's fur. I felt strangely flattered to see her act in such an unbecoming fashion. It made my heart ache softly in a pleasant way to watch her flat on the floor holding my pet. We were alone and there was no way she would allow herself to be like this around many other people. But for me she would expose herself if only for a moment. I saw her weak. I saw her strong.

The dog enjoyed her attention as only a dog can. That sort of open and trusting thoroughness and splendor that only a dog being petted can experience.

Eventually Weiss got up from the floor and took a seat at the table.

"I really should leave the cooking to you," she murmured.

"Just follow a recipe. It's easy."

"It's black magic."

"Man, you must really be exhausted. Did the students really let you have it that badly?"

She slowly nodded and took a bite of noodles and chicken. "Like I said, people died when Cinder made her move. It's up to me to fix it. It really should be Ruby. She's all about mending bridges with people."

"She helped bring you and I together," I agreed. "I'm glad that she did."

"How did you two first become a couple?" Weiss asked.

"We just sort of fell into it. Then one day she kissed me and I puzzled it together. She had to really show me. I was so dense. We were probably a couple for longer than I knew. We always got along really well. Plus she was my first friend."

"Back then you liked me."

"I did. And I liked Pyrrha too but I was too fucking stupid to realize that. We used to go out to Vale together all the time and on little runs. I never knew what those really were. I still sort of don't. And I had eyes for you only."

"Why?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Not really. You had Pyrrha and Ruby and all the other girls at Beacon to crush on. Why me?"

I looked Weiss in the eye. The light from the window painted her in oranges, reds, and gold. The way it filtered in made her eyes glow and the colors were only reflected off of her white hair and white and blue dress. The light made the blue seem almost purple.

"You entranced me."

"I was rude to you."

"You were too good for me. You were putting me in my place. I don't blame you for that. I wanted to melt your heart. You were beautiful and talented. It's sort of hard to explain. I imagined you being cold to everyone but me. I wanted to impress you. I felt like if I could actually do that I would be something for real. It would be an actual accomplishment. I could hang my hat on that."

"I was a prize to be conquered to you?"

"Not like that. I wanted to be good enough. To really truly be good enough. And I was confused and new to the world. I had no real experience with girls. And when I looked at you I just thought… I thought 'I want that.' Does that make any sense?"

"In a fashion…"

"You were more than a target and more than a first crush. You stole my attention. You weren't just an object for my desire, you were something real. And if I wanted you to be mine it was only so that I would be something more true. I would have to be real. Not just with you but with myself. You were always honest with me to the point of brutality and I thought if I could really pull it off I would have to be honestly enough. When I saw you I knew that I wanted you."

"But you faked it. You knew you didn't belong at Beacon and that all the confidence you tried to demonstrate was a lie."

"But if I had you then I would belong and that confidence wouldn't be fake. And it was only when I let go of that notion and Pyrrha died that I became something else. I became someone real. I won Ruby's heart. I let go. I became a man. I killed Ren and Nora and became awful. Then I got you but by then I had abandoned the idea of being good enough. I thought it would be enough to simply be. Be me. And now I'm left wondering when am I gonna lose you."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm still fake. You'll see through me with time I suspect. It's still a lie. I'm a mirage."

"No you're not. I think I would have noticed if you were still like that."

"When will you see that at my core I'm this awful branch grown away from Darwin's ladder? At the bottom I'm a killer. That's what I am for real. I feel like I have fooled you. You and Ruby both. I'm this strange twisted _thing_. I'm barely a person. If at all. How will you slip through my fingers? Will I be careless or unkind? How am I going to ruin this? Because I will. I'm just waiting for it. When am I going to lose you? Because I'll deserve it."

"You really think that? I saw you become comfortable in your skin in Mistral. You did impress me. All that fake confidence you tried at Beacon was gone and you really didn't seem to care what I thought about you. You just took action and stepped forward and led the way. You cared about all of us still but you were done lying to everyone and to yourself. It wasn't because you became competent or confident in yourself for real. Though you did both those things as well. That's when I started to see what Pyrrha and Ruby saw. Don't you get it? You're more than your mother's son. That's why I'm not going anywhere. And neither is Ruby. You changed before Mistral."

"I thought if I had you I'd finally stop hating myself but that never happened. I'm tired of me. I'm fucking bullshit. Can't you see I'm still just as full of it now as I was during our first year?"

"But you're not. You're genuine!"

"You actually think that," I realized. "What do you think I am? What am I made out of?"

"You're a person. Made of flesh and blood and you've made mistakes but also memories. I see your struggle. You know that? You can't hide it from me. I see the pain you're in and it makes you real."

"You don't get it. And how can I explain? It's literally all a lie. All of me. And it always has been. Even my power is fake. My semblance is in disguise."

"Your semblance stems from your obsession with pushing yourself. That's who you are actually. You want to hate yourself. You get something out of blaming yourself for Ren's and Nora's death. You blame yourself for Pyrrha dying too, don't you. So what do you get out of it besides being fucking miserable. Because you are. You really don't like who you are and how are you going to change that? I like who you are. Ruby likes who you are. If you beat Salem tomorrow and your whole team came back from the dead you would still find a way to hurt yourself. So why? Why do you do it?"

"You damn well know it's what I deserve. Besides being miserable keeps my Mother at bay. It's how I hold her back from invading my mind. I use weaponized terror. That's what it does for me. And explain to me how it isn't my fucking fault that they all died. Every single one of them."

"Salem invaded your mind for one. There was nothing you could have done. And if you had been there when Cinder killed Pyrrha you would have changed nothing. You would have just died too. And I'm glad you didn't. I'm also glad that you didn't kill yourself. You matter to me. I like who you showed yourself to be. You haven't fooled me. You revealed yourself and that's who I fell in love with. Yeah, I love Ruby too. But I also really love you. Just not how you despise yourself. You could have everything in the world and you would still be miserable. And I hate that for you. You haven't fooled Ruby and I. Don't you get it? You goofball," she managed to make the final insult endearing and full of venom simultaneously. "Thanks for dinner."

"You're welcome. I would do anything for you. Just a look and I knew I always wanted you. I mean it. I would do anything for Ruby and you. You two are all I have for real."

"You mean that? You would do anything to me?" She asked.

"For you."

"I know what I said," she smirked at me. The tease. "Have our family."

"That's not fair," I protested.

"What's unfair about it. We want you. You want us. What's complicated and unfair about that. You make everything so difficult and it isn't necessary. Haven't you ever had a problem and had somebody else go 'oh it's this,' and they show you and it's obvious."

"All the time," I confessed.

"I'm telling you that you make things needlessly convoluted until you're all tangled up in your worries and obsessions. Not everything is involuted and tortuous. It doesn't have to be this way. So have our family with us. Be a part of our family. Let's give Ruby what she wants."

"And what do you want? What do you want from me Weiss? No bullshit."

"I want two kids. A boy and a girl. I want to love them and raise them with you and Ruby. I want to live close to the rest of my team. I want to help Ruby when she's in over her head with how many kids she wants. That's all I really want. World peace and defeating Salem can hang. Especially world peace. The Gods abandoned Remnant. That's how things should stay."

"I'm not ready."

"No one is ever really ready to be a parent. But I do understand. You have some time afforded to you yet."

"I can't see that project to its end," I went on.

"No good parent wants to," Weiss shot back. She stood and cast her shadow on the walls and floor. It was long behind her and she let her hair down and shook it out in a tide of white. I wanted to grab fistfulls of it and kiss it. I would let the strands run through my fingers like silky water. I stared at her and the light that was still slipping through made her eyes bright. I saw too much reflection in them. Too much of me lived there.

"You have an answer for everything," I accused.

"Just for you."

"How dare you."

She walked over to where I still sat. I looked down at the table. She shut the shutters behind me to the window. And she started to sing softly like an archangel choir. She then leaned down on me. She rested her arms folded around my neck and shoulders and hung on me. Her hair swept forward and across my chest and her face came down parallel to mine. I reached up with one hand and stroked her hair softly. I ran it down her face and touched my thumb to her lips softly while cupping her chin. Even though she was close I couldn't make out the words she was singing. Gods above, her voice was such a turn on.

"Everything has its place," she whispered.

"Even you?" I asked without meaning.

She seized my face in both hands and I balled up a handful of her hair and tugged on it softly gripping close to the root. She moaned into my mouth as we kissed. I leaned back into her and she hovered down onto me as we deepened the kiss. My tongue ran across the pout of her pink lips and she opened her mouth. Like electricity our tongues met with a jolt and ran gently across one another.

Then she pulled back and away from me and I missed her and knew that I wanted her. My mind felt traitorous. I felt relaxed. She seemed to be stripping that edge off of reality that usually only getting high allowed me.

It was addictive and it was cruel of her in happy fashion. I sat back and took her in. How would I ruin this? I traced the curves of her body with my eyes. I was glad she was staying the night and sharing my bed.

I got up to set about the dishes and I pinched the candle wick to close the flame.

Oh how can I explain it? My pulse was slow but loud. I was tired and excited. My eyes ached but I kept them open. For how long had I been so tired? Did it have to be this way. Could I ever be forgiven for the wrong I wrought. We were well on our way to working for a wonderful alternative to forgiveness.

Atonement sounded good but was impossible. There was another means of having a bright future. Could it really be that easy? Could I really just give it up and live my life just like that? Was I living in suffering of my own accord? Did I fashion my own prison?

Cloud Strife, family man. Was it possible? It all seemed way over my head but Weiss was smarter than me. If she thought so could it really be that bad? I needed time to think. It seemed overcast. She walked away from me in dizzying slow motion destined for the bathroom. I watched her unzip her dress and reveal her back to me and shut the door behind her with a single backwards smirk at me. So confident. So sexy. What was a poor bastard like me to do but stare at the door and listen to the shower start running. I imagined real hard what was on the other side of that door. More than everything I had once wanted. So much more. I would have been out of my mind if she would have just gone to the movies with me during freshmen year. I had so much more than that now, today. I was wasting it. Wasn't I?

What she told me ran through my head on repeat. I got up to lie on our bed in the little room.

White sheets and a blue comforter didn't take my mind off of what was going on between one oh so thin wall. Water running down her form and through her hair just a few steps away. Her hair would be clinging to her as she washed it and let it run through her fingers.

I knew that I wanted her.

I got up and checked the door to the bathroom. She'd left it unlocked. I pulled my shirt off and stepped inside.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	154. Momento II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I woke up with Weiss on one of my arms. She was in a pale blue nightgown and she looked so peaceful with her eyes shut and her cheek in the crook of my chest. Her face was relaxed and her breathing was steady.

I shifted and she let out a little whimper and squeezed my arm. I held still and just stared down at her little form. Her sharp beautiful features didn't seem any more dull for her rest but somehow were softer. Her little round nose led up smoothly to her eyes. Her lips were full and pink and slightly open.

I pulled her in close to me tight and our feet wrapped up in one another's. Then I kissed her forehead softly and she let out this little sigh.

"'Morning," she whispered.

"Good morning, darling,"

She rubbed her face into my arm firmly. Her hair was long and spread out behind her in waves like the foam of the ocean. Her pale blue eyes looked up at me. They flickered across my face and down to my lips and back up to my eyes.

I rolled so I was on top of her slightly and kissed her deeply but softly. Then I twisted off of her.

"Lay with me…" Did she just whine?

I stared at her and paused in my getting out of the bed. Weiss pulled the covers up to her eyes adorably.

"What?" I asked.

"Please. Just lay with me for a while."

"And do what?"

"Play with my hair. Hold me." She tried to order. She was still hiding from me a little. She knew I was playing off of her lack of assertiveness for affection. It made her seem shy and nervous when she was typically anything but. It was a side to her you had to see to believe. She was hungry for affection but her upbringing got in the way just a touch. Her household growing up wasn't one where affection was open or free.

I laid back down and wrapped her up in my arms by the waist. I pulled her close to me. Then laying on our left sides I ran my right hand through her white locks. She sighed into the touch. I was tempted to grab her hair by the root and pull her head back and mark her neck with purple bruises using my lips. I imagined staining her pale skin with the signs of my passion. I only grew more hungry as I twirled her hair around and stroked it. I scratched her head gently deep at the base of her skull and she let out a tiny sigh. She smiled and bunched the covers up near her face.

"When we have our own place we could do this every day," she tempted me. It was working.

It did sound nice. I played in the pool of her moon-silver hair. The strands felt silky smooth and when she rocked her head it pulled on her hair like the moons' pull on the tides. I gathered it up. It smelled of something cool and creamy and custard like. Her aura was a bit crisp like freshly crushed ice. I pulled her gown to the side and kissed down her neck to the center of her back. She shivered when I sucked on it gently.

"No hickeys," she whined a little but she shifted back into my touch. She tasted delicious and given half the opportunity I would devour her.

"This would be covered by your dress."

"It had better be. I can't walk around all marked up."

"Just a little? Think of it as an engagement."

"Now you're willing to marry me?"

"If you want."

"Is that really how you want to ask me?"

"In the bed we share while I leave love bites down your back? In the school where we met? Where would you prefer? Atlas? Will you marry me?"

"That's a little better, I suppose. You actually asked the question."

"That's not an answer, darling."

"I would need time."

"I have to ask Ruby too. And so do you. Or she could ask you. However you two want to deal with that side of the triangle is up to you. But I do know I want to marry you, my darling dear."

"You keep calling me darling."

"Would you prefer princess?"

"Darling works."

"You could just admit that you like it."

"I bet you'd enjoy that."

"I actually would. Won't you give me the satisfaction?"

"...no," she hesitated then decided. She wrapped herself further up.

"Fair enough," I muttered. I squeezed her body close to mine by pulling her under ribs into me in a close hug from behind. Then I released her. I rolled to the side out of the bed.

"You're leaving me?"

"I'm making coffee. Do you want a cup?"

"Yes. Thank you."

I changed into a shirt and shorts to run in and walked out.

I stepped in the kitchen and put the filter in the machine and filled it with grounds. Then I poured the water in and waited. I could seriously lay in bed with her all day, just the entire day. But I had other shit I had to do.

She joined me in the kitchen as I was pouring two mugs of joe. She was wearing a blue sweater that made her eyes pop and white leggings. The leggings really showed off the curve of her thighs, calves, and butt. I handed her one of the mugs and watched her turn away from me. I stepped in and put my hands around her waist and pulled her into me. She turned and looked at me with one eye and I kissed her cheek. She was giving me a sly smile and I released her to sit down at the table.

I slammed my coffee without enjoying it to get the caffeine in my system. Then I walked to the window and smoked a bowl to get a little high. Weiss wrinkled her nose.

"Should you really be using a propsychotic hallucinogen?" She asked.

"In Atlas towards the end I was smoking and taking those mood stabilizers at the same time. I was mostly fine."

"Mostly fine," she echoed. "And you think mixing those medications is okay?"

"Meh the worst thing about mixing propsychotic and antipsychotic medication is just a headache."

"..." She glowered at me in silence.

"You can just sleep it off though. Be fine."

"I worry about you. You think it's funny but it's not."

"It's a little funny. I'm laughing."

"Admit you like making me worry about you."

"Admit you like being called darling and having your hair pulled."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she muttered spitefully. Then she took a drink of coffee. Unlike me she was savoring it. "You know I disapprove. Does that matter to you?"

"What should I do? It helps me deal with the hallucinations. It helps me deal with Salem. What alternative is there?"

"I want you to try antipsychotics again. Mood stabilizers and the works. Antidepressants and something to help deal with your panic."

"And hope for what? They didn't work before."

"I did some reading and at times it takes a while to find the right combination of meds to help a person. We just need to find yours and your propsychotics can't be good for you."

"It's easy to say that but you have no idea how awful it is to be on the wrong medications. Nightmares. Muscle tremors. Weakness. Memory loss. Inability to focus. Depression. Suicidal thoughts. Self harm. All these things can happen on the wrong batch if you're lucky. You have never been on any of those meds. You really can't understand how bad they can make things. It takes months to find out if a med works for you. You have to go up on it slowly because you don't want any symptoms to spike or any of those things I listed to occur or worse like seratonnin syndrome. Then you have to slowly go back down on that medication when it doesn't work. Months. Miserable for months. While the psychiatrist fumbles blindly with medications like Clonazepam which they had me on."

"What was wrong with it?"

"Clonazepam is a benzodiazapine. It's more addictive than hyper with worse withdrawal symptoms than heroine. It's to stop panic attacks. But no one really knows how drugs like these work. Because no one knows how the brain works. And I'm telling you weed helps me. I really have no interest in spending months suffering on super addictive medication that won't even work because there's nothing wrong with my nervous system. I'm as I was intended to be. You know that proving a drug is antipsychotic is a myth right?"

"How so?"

"The questions they ask you are 'are you feeling better?' They are happy pills. And nothing more."

"And weed isn't?"

"But it works for me. You're telling me to play around with all the medications which could spike my psychosis to find one that works for me when I already found one. You really have no idea how much of a waking nightmare those drugs can make your life. I had such horrible dreams and an inability to sleep well on some of them and they made me miserable. They make living intolerable. Being alive is literal agony. I hear you Weiss. You want what's best for me and you're super worried that this isn't it. But I really need you to listen to me when I tell you this works for me. Yeah, the smell sucks. But I'll pick up some concentrates and a vaporizer pen and the smell will be gone. CBD is an antipsychotic. THC and THC-H are the propsychotics. It's both. Just like those meds you want me on. Those meds have the potential to make things worse too."

"We'll talk about it more. I just worry about you, Cloud. I would rather you had a doctor managing your brain chemistry and balance. Preferably a really good one. Because let's face it you're an amateur at this. But if we found somebody who knows what they are doing you could be really… you could do really well. Like before Salem first touched your mind. That's all. Maybe you could explain all of what you just told me to the doctors and they could help. What if there is a better way? That's all. I just want the best for you and maybe greens are it. I don't know. But doctors do. And yes your case is unique but so is every psychosis."

"I really don't want to go through some of those meds again. If only you knew how bad they could really make you feel. I wish I had words to express how absolutely horrendous they can be. Mother might be preferable to Vraylar."

"You can't mean that."

"I really can. And I do. It's so absolutely unbearable. I'd rather face my Mother's torture's sobber than deal with that. I'd rather be mind raped raw dog than get on those medications."

"Alright. I hear you. They're bad."

"I'll try them again and quit weed if you want. For you I'll do it. But you need to know what you're asking me to do. Go ahead. Ask me to stop."

"Okay. Well I'll think more about it. Deal? And I won't ask you to do anything yet. I just want you to be taken care of."

"Just so long as I'm heard."

"How are you dealing with your mother?"

"Probably about the same way you're dealing with your father. She's emotionally abusive and she attacks my mind while I sleep. And when I'm awake sometimes we chat."

"You talk to her?"

"She asks me to stop. We're sort of interwoven. The fear I feel is driving us all insane. My sisters feel it. They told me so. And that's pretty much where I live. I use my terror to keep her at bay. It's her own fault. She gave me this gun."

"I would prefer it if you weren't so positively terrified it was driving you out of your mind."

"I'd prefer if I'm not going to die and if Mother would stay out of my fucking head. How's your relationship with your parents going?"

"Don't change the subject. We're talking about your problems. Why are you so scared?"

"Well there's a lot to be afraid of. And my Mom is fucking with my mind. Also did I mention I'm dying? That's pretty stressful."

"So what are we going to do about it?" She asked.

"Do about it?" I wondered.

"You can't live like this."

"I can. And I love it," I countered.

"Okay. Let me rephrase. I'm not happy about it and I want you to change and stop it. I want you to be happy for real rather than this masochistic joy for yourself."

"I don't know. We could try murdering the sadistic bitch."

"Let's get serious."

"Oh suddenly I'm the only one who has thought of killing their parents in the room. You get serious."

"Quit making this about my father! I don't want to talk about him or think about him!"

"I'm in the same boat you are! You think I want to think about my Mother? No. But you're making me."

"You're mother is invading your mind. It's different than me and my father."

"I really don't like thinking about her or talking about her. What do you want me to say? She's such a fucking bitch. She's this alien, world ending bitch. And she's in my head but recently she's been avoiding me. She won't talk to me. She won't invade my dreams. Things are good. Don't rock the boat on me Weiss. She has been the one building walls between us because I'm so unbelievably scared all the time that it's enough to make a person lose it. Things have been good. Let's not ask for much. We take what we can get and you know what? We take those little victories. We absolutely take those."

"I don't want that for you. I want you to be happy. I want you to build the wall. I don't want that mind numbing fear for you that you're describing. Why can't you be the one to build the wall and be happy on this side? Is that just impossible? Has it ever happened to you? When was the last time you were actually happy?"

"Last night with you and again this morning."

"Quit trying to butter me up!"

"Quit making me think about my fucking Mother! It's literally the worst."

"Just talk about it with me."

"Fine. What do we want to talk about specifically?"

"What was the last conversation you had with her?"

"It was a few months ago. I was trying to pin down whether the fear I felt was coming from her or me. I think it was coming from both of us. Mother was afraid. She wasn't sure that my power and my ability to resist her was going to stop growing. And a month later she told me to kill my father. Not really sure why. She's so manipulative it could have been anything. Now you go."

"Me?" Weiss wondered.

"Yeah you. You made me talk about my Mother now I'm making you talk about your parents."

"No," the noise was dragged from Weiss's throat.

"What are they like? Are they both bad? What horrible shit did they do to you?"

"My father was emotionally and physically abusive. He hit me. My mother was a drunk. She spent all day drinking. Day in and day out. It's a miracle I came out as well as I did."

"Samesies. Do you wanna kill your dad?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"A genuine one? I want to kill my parents. They are such and utter dicks."

"It's too early for this…"

"We really ought to be drinking for a conversation like this."

Weiss wrinkled her cute, sharp nose. "I don't drink."

"Oh come on. Not even with me? All alone just the two of us."

"Not happening."

"But I bet you get so cute though. Slurring your pristine words with your sexy tongue."

"My tongue is sexy?"

"Not on its own. Your eyes are sexy but if you just had an eyeball on the table it would just be gross. Context is important."

"I suppose that's true enough. Nothing alone like that would be attractive. You need the whole picture."

"Exactly. So you'll drink with me."

"I didn't agree to that."

"Think of it from my perspective."

"You want a drunk girl alone with you?" She asked.

"First of all I have your consent sober. How dare you. Second of all that's not what I meant. Think about how adorable Ruby probably gets while she drinks. I bet she won't shut up about weapons and I could listen to her talk for hours. You get me? There's nothing more pure than loving someone even when they have no inhibitions and can't control themselves. I want to know how you behave when you can't hold yourself back. I bet it's cute. I bet it's sexy."

"Do you think I would find you sexy when you're drunk?"

"Around you? While drinking? I bet I couldn't keep my hands to myself. Have you ever seen a mirror, Weiss?"

"I'm familiar with my reflection."

"Then you already know what I'm talking about. I'd want to touch you. Gods, you make me hungry. You taste so good. Your aura is delicious. It drives me crazy. Stew on that."

"It sounds like you're the one stewing on it."

"A little bit."

Then I gathered my dog and left for my run. It was enjoyable and I got a burning runner's high across the inside of my skull. I enjoyed both highs I was on.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	155. Momento III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Weiss and I pulled up on Juniors on my new motorbike. She clung to me tight the whole way and didn't that make me feel like a man.

"This is the place?" She wondered. Her hands left my chest and I missed them. Her aura was so smooth and crisp. Like a caramel coffee or some custard treat.

"This is Junior's, come on. They'll give me special treatment here."

"Because you're a Professor?"

"Because I'm a dangerous and nigh unstoppable madman pushing past the limits and tripping on hallucinogenics."

"Ah. You pulled the other card."

"Pretty much. I've worked with Junior. He's mostly alright."

"Is he a criminal?"

"He sells information," I waggled a hand and led her up to the bar entrance.

"So kinda. That's how you're coming at this?"

"It's not perfect and they sell drinks and drugs to me. Cut me some slack."

She huffed but fell silent. I pulled her by the hand up to the bar.

"Professor," the man behind the bar greeted me. "Need to talk to Junior?"

"Not tonight. I'd like a private booth and server. I'm here to have a good time."

"Right away."

"What kind of place have you brought me?" Weiss asked as we sat in a private booth. I ordered us a dozen shots to space out throughout the evening, some water, and a handful of cocktails to sip on between shots.

"It's just a club and nothing more."

"This is really more Yang's scene."

"I would argue that's the dance floor. Up here on the second floor we have our own little room. Have a shot with me."

We clinked glasses and Weiss gagged on the alcohol. "Nasty stuff."

"You don't have shots for the flavor. You drink those for the feel."

"And how do they make you feel?"

"A pleasant nausea and dizziness. Relax. Junior won't let anything happen here. We're safe. And we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about."

"Even your Mother?"

"Of course. You have to know you're all I think about sometimes. Of course I'll talk about my parent issues with you if you really want."

"Then let's talk. What does she really do to you?"

"I'm gonna need another shot. I was half hoping you weren't serious. Have a shot with me and suck on one of those cocktails. They won't drink themselves."

I slammed a shot back and took a swallow of a fruity cocktail. Weiss followed suit. I pulled a joint out of my pocket and lit it. I took a long pull and blew it away from Weiss.

"It all started for real when she made me kill Ren and Nora. She just stepped into me and unmade me. She told me to shut up and I nearly bit my tongue off. I couldn't speak. I couldn't do anything but obey. She told me to take the relic to her. I broke the spell but that's when I started hearing her voice. I got the sensation of bugs crawling on my skin. In my eyes and ears and throat. Anywhere sensitive, really. Then she started invading my dreams. One time she hit me with the sensation of waking up nine or ten times in a row. It was agony. My sisters make it sound like she can do way worse to us in person but it's almost hard to believe. Saphron told me that I have no idea what she can do to us for real. But sometime I'm gonna have to face her if I ever want to be free. I have to destroy her and scatter her. She sends me nightmares where I drown and burn and am electrocuted or eaten alive. Not recently, more in the past. She hit that fear and pain buttons too many times until they just sort of broke. What is pain? What is pleasure? I'd nearly forgotten until you came back to me."

"I came back to you?" Weiss asked. "You left. You abandoned us."

"I thought I was going to kill you. Forgive me, Weiss. Forgive my fear and weakness. I have bloodlust. When I did hyper I thought I was going to kill someone. That day I left was familiar to that. I had to leave. I had to find solace and the means to rebel against her. I felt her fear now. She has no idea what I can do. But we're connected. She's never been in this position before. It scares her to have such a powerful wayward son."

My joint burnt my fingers because I forgot I lit it.

I cast it to the floor and away.

"Have another shot with me if you're gonna make me talk about this bullshit."

Weiss agreed and swallowed vodka.

I reclined in the booth and put my arm around her and pulled her close to me.

"At least your aura still has the same flavor when you smoke or it would be intolerable," Weiss complained but she didn't move away.

"What do I taste like? I always wanted to ask."

"Torched sugar and ozone," Weiss said immediately.

"Huh. And that's a good smell?"

"It tastes very good. You always had that going for you. Even at Beacon."

"Please don't make me talk about freshman year. You'll make me cringe."

"You?" She asked. "I was such a bitch."

"Not to everyone."

"To you."

"I deserved it. I was such a fake bastard. You just had no tolerance for my bullshit. I don't blame you for it. I always admired how you could see through me."

"Now look at you. No more bullshit."

"Just a different kind. I'm waiting for the day you and Ruby find some other strong and tall man."

She hit my chest in that affectionate way I loved so much. "We will not. There's no one but you. No way. It wouldn't fly."

"I fucking love when you hit me like that," I blurted.

"You love when I hit you?"

"In that affectionate reprimanding way. I love that. I love when you touch me. Like the whole ride here. I can't believe it keeps happening."

"You changed the topic. We were talking about how there was no one but you. We were talking about your mother and the old Beacon days too."

"It's a conversation. It's always shifting. Let's have another shot."

"I am _feeling _it," Weiss confessed. She took a big gulp of her cocktail and downed some whiskey with me.

"What about your father?"

"My father is such a bastard. He hit me all the time. He didn't want a daughter. He wanted a doll. He made me sing for his galas. He wanted to show me off and then put me away in a closet. If he could have frozen me as a little girl and only let me out for special occasions he would have. I'm convinced that's what he did with my brother. My brother is such a prick. He wanted me to lose my position as the heiress. More for him that way."

"So do you want to kill him?"

"My brother or my father?"

"Either. No judgment."

"Ugh. No. Neither of them are worth it. How about you?"

"My Mother and father for sure. I really want to save my sisters but that's probably impossible. I'll most likely have to kill them."

"Listen to me complain," Weiss blurted. "You're mother is the worst thing that has ever happened to this planet. Single handedly."

"You still get to complain. Your father is pretty bad."

I rolled another joint and took a pull. I let the crossfade take me and I melted back into Weiss. She shifted and slumped into me. Yeah. That was the stuff.

"Who would have thought from back at Beacon I would be with you," Weiss pointed out. "You and Rub-by b-both," she slurred. She quickly cupped her hand over her mouth and her blue eyes went wide and her cheeks flushed. She tried to cover it up but I had heard the whole thing. I slowly raised a finger and pointed it at her.

"Not a word," she demanded.

I just nodded stupidly.

"It's not that big of a deal."

I started laughing.

"Stop it!" She hissed and hit me. That hit the spot.

"I fucking knew I could get you to slur. What'sa matter? Is your cute little pink tongue getting hard to control?"

"Why is it cute when it was sexy before. Why am I sometimes cute and sometimes sexy? Tell me that."

"After you have a shot with me."

We slammed a round back and I watched Weiss wash it down with some creamy cocktail. I took another drag and blew the smoke away from my girlfriend. From my fiancé? From my something.

"It's cute when it's fumbling around for example. But when we kiss and our tongues gently touch it's sexy."

"How about in Atlas when we kissed and you called me cute. Or adorable, maybe? I was supposed to be sexy."

"When?"

"When you and I first kissed."

"Oh right," I laughed. "You tried to wrap your legs around me. It would have been very sexy if you pulled it off but you failed. That made it adorable."

"So even as a failure at worst I'm adorable ta you," she slurred again. "Don't you dare."

I started laughing.

"Itss not funny," she did it again. "You made me like this!" She hit my thigh hard. She brushed something and looked down. I shifted a little in my seat. "Do you have an erection right now?" She whispered conspiratorially.

"Mind your business," I shot back.

"Do I turn you on right now?" She pressed. She grinned in almost predatory fashion and she leaned in on me. Then she rolled around and pressed her back against my chest and lay way back on me so I could see down her blue sweater. I looked away. "Am I getting you hot and bothered under the collar?" She asked. She spun her smooth neck around so I could see her baby blues. Fuck me, her fucking eyes were… they just were, man.

"You're about to fucking get it if you don't stop."

"Make. Me." She purred from her throat.

I swallowed and she grinned with victory.

I kissed her hard. Her hand came up my chest then slowly ran down me to the inside of my thigh. I moaned into her mouth and our tongues met with a jolt.

"You're distracting me. How am I supposed to think straight? You're such fucking bullshit Weiss. You always have been. You cheat."

"Did you ever masterbate to the thought of me at Beacon?" She went on. She was relentless.

"Like your ego needs me to say 'yes.'"

"No, you have to tell me. You said we'd talk about whatever I wanted. You said you'd do anything for me. You have to tell me."

I glowered at her. "You already know."

"Nuh-uh. If you want the real thing tonight you better answer me."

"You're a cheater."

"Isn't the real thing so much better?" She giggled behind her hand at me.

"You just love the power you have over me."

"A little," she admitted and she rubbed a little circle on my thigh with her thumb. "What's it gonna be?"

"Yeah. I jerked off and thought of you."

"You could have made that sound romantic," she complained and she swallowed more cocktail. I reached around her and set the water in front of her and made sure that she had a few swallows.

"Now you have to admit that you like it when I get behind you and pull your hair. Admit it. The pure little Schnee girl is dirty and likes getting her hair pulled."

She rolled her eyes but then she turned and straddled me. She swept one leg over mine until she was kneeling to either side of my legs. She took my face in both her hands and she looked me dead in the eye. "I'm a dirty girl who likes getting her hair pulled," she whispered as she ran a hand through my hair. She smirked as she felt me. "Now you really have an erection, don't you?"

"It's your fault," I managed with a dry throat.

"Now that's how you confess something like that. You need to try again."

"You really want me to?"

"Unless you want to take care of that thing yourself tonight," she teased.

"Another shot," I demanded. "Then I'll give it a try."

We slammed one back.

"Weiss, the thought of you gets me off and it always has," I tried. I ran a hand through my hair as I said it.

"That was better," she finished her second cocktail.

I took a swing on my joint.

"Let me try that," Weiss pointed at the joint.

"You sure?" I asked.

"What's the worst thing that could happen? I disappoint my father?"

"It flips a gene and you have permanent psychosis," I said soberingly.

"That can happen?! And you still use!?"

"That gene is already flipped for me."

"Fair enough. Let me try it."

I handed it off to her.

"Hopefully this isn't the last thing you suck on tonight." I commented as I did.

"Don't be vulgar."

"Are you kidding?"

She took a pull. Then she exhaled.

"Besides wouldn't you rather get behind me and pull my hair?" She asked. "Woah that was fast." She looked around as though seeing the world through new eyes.

"Inhalants are like that. The lungs are faster than digesting alcohol."

"I think I see why you like it. It's a real rush."

"It can be."

"Kinda scary though."

"Kinda. Don't trip."

"What were we talking about?"

"Me pulling your hair."

"You gotta get it by the base. Not the ends or else it hurts."

"I will roger that. Anything else I should know?"

"The clitoris has as many nerve endings as the human eye."

"Is that true? That can't be true."

"Oh yeah."

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"It can. You have to be gentle and tease it. But after you get things warmed up you can strum that bad boy."

"And that's good?"

"It can be so good it almost hurts."

"Almost."

"Does. Whatever," she said. "But it's the kind of pain you want anyways. Like when you go inside and start stretching things it hurts but it's a good hurt. Like a workout kinda. Like it's being used like it's meant to."

"I'll do my best."

"Is there anything about guys that I should know?" She asked.

"Why? Finally leaving me for some other guy? What's his name?"

"There's no other guy! I just meant about you, really. But my advice will help you with Ruby."

"Gotcha. Nah, there's nothing like that kind of thing. Not really. It all feels good. It's great to be inside something. Right now it's lonely. Little Cloud is lonely whenever it isn't inside something."

"Aw poor baby. How did you cope while you were out roaming the countryside with what's her name?"

"I didn't have sex with Rosé."

"Did you think about it?"

"Not even a little."

"I bet she thought about it. I was thinking about you in Mistral. You and Ruby both. It was a confusing time in my life."

"Was it?"

"Yeah. You were all suddenly impressive and competent and tall and strong and smart. And Ruby was just so hot. Have you ever seen her? With those eyes and that red hair and those tight corsets."

"Have you ever made Ruby orgasm while looking her dead in the eyes?" I asked.

"Huh uh," Weiss shook her head and slurred a little. "What's that like? She always closes her eyes for me."

"There was this one time in Mistral when we had the place to ourselves and the look on her face was just so relaxed with her lips parted and her eyes were partially closed and dazed and almost like she was fading in and out of consciousness. It was beautiful. It was so amazing."

"A good orgasm is like that sometimes for us ladies."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. I'm going to do that the next time we see her. Make her look at me while it happens. She'll do it too. She's so submissive in the bedroom."

"A queen in the streets and a sub in the sheets," I agreed.

"You really don't blame me at all for what I did to you at Beacon?"

"Nah. Not an inch. I hardly think about it amongst my other Beacon regrets."

"What other Beacon regrets?"

"Oh you know. That I existed at all. My team. That sort of thing."

"Hey," she whined. "You're supposed to talk to me. Open up."

"Ruby once said she needed a can opener with me."

"Quit distracting me with Ruby talk. You need to tell me why me."

"Why you?"

"Yeah, why me. Why not Pyrrha?"

"I don't know. Why do people do anything? I never noticed her like that. If I had known how she felt sooner would I have done something about it? I have no idea. Probably. I'd like to think so but it's easy to think something like that. Why'd you reject me so many times. Why didn't you give me a single date to show you something real?"

"Because I couldn't see it. That thing that Ruby and Pyrrha saw. I just couldn't find it. Not until Mistral."

"I'd like to say Mistral was good times but I can't with how it ended."

"You blame yourself for that too much. It's unhealthy. You've got to see that."

"No I don't."

"You do too you big liar."

"I'm blind."

"Oh, you're just teasing me. Pyrrha's death wasn't your fault. Only you can find a way to blame yourself for that."

"If we're talking about Pyrrha I'm going to need another shot."

I hammered one. Weiss followed along and gasped off the alcohol with a shake of her head. She was a little thing and she was keeping up with me. She was going to end up wasted.

"So let's talk about Pyrrha. How could you not notice?"

"I'm a fucking moron."

"Stop that. What's the real reason?"

"I didn't know any better. Little runs and trips out to Vale together that I didn't think much on. I thought it was just partner stuff and that she was just being nice."

"Until?"

"Until she kissed me and went off to die. That's about when I puzzled it together. Way too late."

"Would you have dated her?"

"If it was up to me? Yeah, I think so."

"Did you love her?"

"Probably maybe? I never got the chance to explore that before it all blew up. What about you with Ruby back at Beacon? You two were partners. And nothing happened?"

"There were little things and signs I think but nothing big and easily noticeable. She liked spending time with me and I liked spending time with her even though I would never admit it. But there was nothing romantic going on until after Mistral. And I pushed her before she was really ready. I regret that. I wish I would have handled my feelings better but it worked out for the best in the end. I got her and that's what I wanted."

"You two have such great chemistry," I agreed. "I had thought Ruby was leaving me for you back at the in-patient hospital in Atlas. You two would have worked out well together."

"But we both also wanted you. You wanted us. Or at least you wanted Ruby."

"I have wanted you my entire life," I disagreed.

"Even in Mistral?"

"Do you remember that morning in Mistral when Yang walked in on me and Ruby and you and I had a chat?"

"Of course I do."

"In the morning light coloring your body and reflecting off your eyes you were so gorgeous. And we talked so easily. So much more easily than we ever did at Beacon. I felt something for you then."

"I remember that morning. I was so jealous of both you and Ruby at the same time. And you were so handsome when you leaned against the door all disheveled by romance. Then we got along and talked so naturally. I remember. How could I forget? I think I knew that I wanted you then. But I wasn't really sure what to do about it. Then I made my move on Ruby while you were off with Neapolitan. I kissed her and made sure she knew how I felt. From then on she took care of me and made sure I was involved in the romance of her life. She begged you to not make her choose."

"Two beautiful girls liked me. And you both wanted to be a trio. What could I say besides yes? There was nothing else to be done. And it all worked out for the best despite how complicated it is."

"I keep telling you that you make things-s c-complicated," she stumbled over her words again. I shifted in my seat. "Do you just get a boner every time I stutter?"

"It's not my fault. You're so hot while you're fumbling."

"I thought it was adorable."

"The sexy kind of adorable. Like doe eyes are cute but they also make me want you."

"I think I understand."

"Good because I'm bad at explaining it."

"Did you do any thinking about our family?"

"You need something that I can't give you. You have to know that."

"But you can. Don't make this complicated. You want it and so do we."

"You aren't getting it yet. Yes sometimes all I think about is you. Like in the morning when you're sleeping so comfortable. But you need something I can't give. You need a better life than this. You need somebody not doomed."

"It's only in your head that you can't give Ruby her family."

"What about all the risks?"

"Ruby and I know the risks and we want it anyways."

"You'd be better off with somebody else."

"Cloud, there is no way anybody else would do. We need you to be there."

"I don't want to be alone but I feel like I have got to let you go."

"Don't even think about it. Ruby and I are in this with you to the end of the line."

"But think about what you're giving up!"

"The only one giving things up is you. I want it all. You're part of that."

"But should I be?"

"Yes! Do a shot with me," she demanded and I had to. If she could stomach it as a little creature of beauty then I had to be able to. We did. I added some dope to my system and let the blinding nausea take me for a spinning second. "There's no way anybody anywhere is replacing you, Cloud. You belong to Ruby and I. You belong with us. You can call it destiny or you can say it's just where the chips fell but there's no substitute for you in our trio. No one else would work out. Who else would Ruby and I both like. And without you it would just be the two of us. And do you feel complete with just me here now? Or is there something missing? It's okay, I don't blame you. I feel it too. I miss Ruby. You're a lot, Cloud, but you're not enough without Ruby. It's not enough for me. It's not your fault or anything but a piece is lacking. Or maybe there's something in excess without her? But the point is I'm not whole. And neither are you. And you never will be whole without us and we will never be complete without you. We need you. So I don't want to hear anymore talk about how you're not good enough."

"Okay. You won't hear it."

"Oh for- I don't want you quietly thinking it either! We love you. You-you-goofball! Gods, you're infuriating. I demand that you love yourself."

"The gods themselves can't make me."

"Well I can and I will. If I can mend the bridges between Atlas and Vale, I can make you love yourself. I'll just have to love you until then. Thanks for this Cloud. I liked it. Was it everything you hoped and dreamed for?"

"Everything and more."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	156. Leave Everything To Me

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Weiss was tired after our night out. She probably should have drunk more water. I crawled out of bed carefully so as not to disturb her and I looked down on her angelic face blemished only by that mighty scar. She looked incredibly relaxed and at peace and she sighed softly when I disentangled myself from her. That scar didn't detract from her beauty. It only gave it a sharp accent. I ran my finger down the length of it and pressed my thumb to her lips. She curled up a little and leaned into the touch like a puppy.

If she asked me to kill myself I would do it. If she told me to kill a dog I wouldn't hesitate. So why couldn't I be happy after she specifically requested it. I walked out to the kitchen. I stared at the stove. I lit the burner and I held the back of my hand over the flame.

The pain seared me and I felt my nerves tingle as they died. In their death throes they pulsed and blisters gushed towards the surface. I watched and felt it all with a grotesque luring fascination. The agony was delightful to my confused brain. The feeling was incredibly intense and after so much time spent feeling nothing at all it became a pleasant sensation. The smell of my hand cooking hit me. The scent of roasting flesh and burning hairs drifted through the air.

"Cloud!" Weiss darted in and pulled my hand back. I hadn't noticed her approach and I realized that I was crying a little. "What were you doing?"

"It felt _good_," I hummed.

"Have a seat. I'm going to bandage you up."

I took a seat in a dining room chair. My hand pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

"I don't know how to help you. I'm so scared for you it hurts. What am I going to do with you? I have no idea how I'm supposed to handle this. Do you self harm often?"

"I've never cut myself."

"Expertly dodged," she congratulated. She knelt at my feet and started wrapping my hand in bandages.

"Thank you."

"Answer the question for real now."

"Sometimes. Not often. There's something special in the way my nerves tingle as they burn. It's so intense. I really feel it. It's not an unpleasant sensation."

"I thought you were doing well."

"This is me doing well."

"No. I refuse to believe that. I'm going to help you."

"How? I like it."

"Well… can't you do something else? Like holding an icecube? Take a hot shower?"

"I could freeze it," I realized.

"No!"

"But I bet it would feel so good."

"Cloud please. I'm begging you."

"To what?"

"To stop, damnit! Any time you feel like self-harming… just… you can ask me for sex or something. Whatever you want. Just stop hurting yourself. Please. For me."

"You really mean that?" I asked.

"Of course. I love you."

I just sort of stared at her. I watched her kiss the back of my hand and rise. Then she was standing in front of me and I realized she was crying.

"Let me help you. Please. Just ask me. Please stop hurting yourself," she begged. "I'm so scared for you."

"You're beautiful even when you're crying," I muttered. I stared at her red eyes and flushed face.

"Quit trying to flatter me!"

"But you are. You're gorgeous. It's incredible. You ever see something so beautiful that it's terrible? Or perhaps it's so terrible it's beautiful?"

"No…" she whispered.

"You're like that. The connection between my family members and I is like that."

"You're scaring me Cloud. Please come back down to Remnant with me."

"I'm sorry," I murmured. "I have serious issues."

"You do. You really do. Let me help you, please. I can help you Cloud."

"I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"You," I said feeling stupid. "You used to hate me. Then one day you were in love with me. It came out of nowhere and after I killed Ren and Nora. I don't get it."

"You were so honest. I lived my entire life trapped in my father's lies. Then at Beacon you were lying to everyone. Especially yourself. But in Mistral you were so honest. You were honest about everything. You became competent and sure and so very honest. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to react? Suddenly you fit the bill."

"All it took was Pyrrha," I muttered, feeling numb to everything but that pleasant ache in my hand. "Then it took Ren and Nora too. It cost me everything but my wish came true and I got you. Mother took everything from me."

"You still have Ruby and I. She didn't take everything from you yet."

"Give it time."

"Quit saying that. This is serious. I can't abandon you now. You need me more than ever. I'm not going anywhere. Think of Ruby's dream."

"The dream…" I whispered like I was trying to remember something I'd forgotten. I still felt polarizing numbness except for where I torched myself. I felt slow and incompetent.

"The dream," Weiss agreed. "Come on Cloud. I want to ice your hand. What am I going to do with you? You can't just hurt yourself. We care about you. I care about you. You're scaring me and I don't know how to help you. What would Ruby do?"

"If Ruby saw that she would have a panic attack. She would have no idea how to help me either," I pointed out.

"She would have some idea."

"No. She wouldn't. Don't tell her."

"That's not up for discussion. I'm not going to tell her. You are."

"Oh fuck me. Don't make me, please."

"Don't hurt yourself, please," she countered. "You're forcing me hand. I'm going to get you better or die trying."

"I would never have even thought about asking you out again."

"What do you mean?"

"In Mistral or Atlas. I would never have asked you out again."

"I rejected you so many times. That's to be expected."

"But I'm glad for how things turned out. Is that weird?"

"Not really. At least I don't think so."

"You're really all I have."

"And Ruby."

"But she's not with me. And I know that's my fault. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you saw."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I had a meeting with the Engelberts. I owed them for killing Hazel and for getting involved with the bombing. It would be remiss of me to not acknowledge my obligations to them. I could probably force them to bow before me but you got more flies with honey than vinegar. Two favors wasn't so bad for their continued help. Lila's power was useful for knowing when my enemies were in town.

This time I met on their terms in the spirit of good faith. It was an old red brick and mortar warehouse on the far side of town. I parked my bike outside and set down the kickstand with a flick of my ankle. Then I marched up to the door and pulled it open to step inside.

There were rows and rows of boxes on shelves. I pulled one down and took a look. White powder. Hyper. It wasn't my drug of choice despite the rush it provided. And the propsychotic tendencies were just too risky. With THC and CBD there was at least an antipsychotic involved. I was fairly sure that it was the combination of both that made weed work for me. It wasn't unheard of for someone to be on mood stabilizers and antipsychotics and then something like dextroamphetamine. I'd never tried amphetamines. Maybe they were super good. I set the box of powder back on the shelf. Weiss wouldn't approve. Do it for her you fucking moron. Don't try amphetamines even though it would probably be super easy to get your hands on some.

"I was going to say that that would have cost you," it was Noir's voice. "Not interested? I never get high off my own supply. It's bad for business."

"I've tried it. It's not for me," I said. I looked over at where Noir was leaning against one of the racks.

"Really? That's a shame."

"I'm more of a greens guy. I get them from Junior."

"Then you're really buying from us. We run most of the drugs in this town through intermediaries like Junior."

"Most but not all the drugs?" I asked.

"We have some competition."

"Is that what you need from me? I owe you two favors. Nothing personal about attacking you at Juniors. I just needed you to understand me."

"It was nothing personal and you didn't kill me."

"Is that what you want to hang your hat on? I thought you would be more pissed off at me."

"Where would that get me? I can't do anything about you."

"That's true enough. So, two favors. What do you need from me?"

"We want to borrow Neapolitan's powers," Lila stepped in on the other side of me and I was boxed in by the two of them between the shelves. I didn't feel threatened. I could kill one then probably take the other. I walked around just a heartbeat away from killing anyone thanks to Omni-slash. I'd proven that when I used it to one-shot Raven Branwen. I was probably the most powerful hunter alive and I could keep pace with up to three of my sisters at once. They must not be as advanced in magic as I was. Or it was Limit Breaker in play and making me just overall better at everything including magic. Or maybe it was magic making Limit Breaker better. It really was impossible to say.

"What for?" I wondered.

"A robbery. The details aren't super important. We'll be breaking in on our competition and stealing their supply and we could use someone as dangerous as her with her powers," Lila explained.

"Done," I agreed. "That still leaves you with another favor."

"We were going to maybe hold onto that one. We might need it later," Noir commented.

"A wise precaution," I muttered. "You have my number if you need me."

"Just Neapolitan is fine," Noir declared.

So they were scared of me. Makes sense. I was a powerful blind spot in their powers and I had proven I could floor either of them in a second or so. That was fast even with hunter reaction times. Most hunters would take time to die. I could bypass that and go for the kill.

"That works for me. Send me the details and I'll pass it along to Neo. It's a pleasure doing business with you both. And keep me in the loop on my names."

"That sort of bombing is bad for business. What were the girls going for?" Noir asked.

"The satellite probably. Destroy that and wipe us back down to the dark days," I explained.

"International comms are good for us. Faster communication always is. Why would they attack the satellite? I can' imagine what someone would have to gain by doing that," Lila pointed out.

"If you were trying to destroy the kingdoms you would start by doing that. That's what they are after. These people don't care about the crime game. They want to blow it all up and sift through the ashes. That's why I'm trying to stop them. That's why I'm willing to work with you two. Even if it means getting my hands dirty it's worth it to try and stop them."

"So you are one of the good guys," Noir decided.

"Careful. I'm really not so pure of heart as that. I've killed people in the past for the slightest provocation and even less than that. I've straight up murdered people for the fun of it. I'm not some grey angel. Not even close. I'm something new."

"You're threatening us again," Lila noted.

"Just reminding you. I am not nice. If that's all, I'm out of here."

"It is," Noir said. "You're welcome and get out of our faces."

I turned on my heel and started walking towards the exit. Lila leaned out of my way as I passed her. Our eyes met for a moment and she looked away. She took in the sight of my wrapped hand. Was she scouting for weaknesses? She wouldn't find one there.

I walked out of the storage facility and straddled my bike. I started it and took off.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"So we're not in trouble?" Yuma asked.

I had team RYPP gathered in my office. Things had cooled down a little and I wanted to talk to them about the bombing.

"What for?" I wondered right back. "You were attacked. There was an explosion. How is that on you?"

"Well we didn't stop them. The bombers or the Engelberts," Yuma muttered.

"It was never your job to stop them. You did more than anyone asked you to. No one is going to say that what you did was a bad thing. Quite the opposite. I just wanted to ask you if you saw anything noticeable about the bombers or criminals. Did you see them use their semblances? That sort of thing. You're definitely not in trouble and you did well. Now leave them to me and the authorities. We'll take over. You should just focus on your studies and learning how to be huntresses."

"We didn't see the Engelberts's semblances in action…" Rosé trailed off.

"But the man they killed ate dust. As in lots of it," Pine pointed out. "He didn't seem bothered by it at all."

"Hazel Rainart. He and I ran into one another in Mistral. He had a pain nullifying power. It's good that he's gone. He was a serious threat. Now for the bombers."

"They were three girls and they all sort of looked alike. I would even say that two of them were nearly identical," Peach said.

"Did you engage them at all?" I asked.

"Only for a moment or two. Then they took off into the Atlas ship. We're not sure what they wanted. It may have had something to do with the new satellite," Pine decided.

"That seems likely. Bringing that down would have kept us in the dark. It's a good thing that they failed."

"Um, Professor? What happened to your hand?" Rose asked.

"I burnt it on my stove. Didn't have my aura up. I was caught unawares."

"You lowered your aura on purpose?"

"The details aren't important."

"But it's not like you're a bad chef. I've seen you cook."

"My hand isn't important. Let's stay focused on the bombers: the girls and the large man, Hazel Rainart. He was a wanted man in Atlas and Mistral. You all helped take him down. Well done."

"It was mostly the Engelberts," Pine dismissed.

"What happened to those girls you went after?" Peach asked.

"They were trying to launch that ship up at the satellite. I managed to force them to retreat before they could start their plan to cause chaos. They killed the crew before I could stop them and we made a mess out of the bridge."

"It must have been three on one," Yuma commented. "How did you do it?"

"This may come as a shock to you all but I'm a talented huntsman with some real power behind me," I smiled softly and scratched my chin. "Most of your teachers here are."

"Like the headmistress?" Peach asked.

"Particularly the headmistress. Well, if you girls can't remember any more details for me you're dismissed. Enjoy the rest of your day."

They filed out and I was left alone with my dog. I reached out with my burnt hand and scratched the animal. It sniffed Weiss's bandages a little and licked at my hand.

"It's not a big deal," I informed Red.

It let out a massive doggy sigh.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	157. Leave Everything To Me II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"_All the rain and thunder, the days are getting darker. I'm looking in the mirror, for a little glimmer,_" Weiss was singing as she washed dishes in the kitchen. I cooked and Weiss demanded that she be given something to do so she did the dishes. She started watching me cook as well. She didn't trust me around the stove.

I sat back on one of the dinning annex chairs and took in the sight of her working and singing.

**"**_I was dancing with my eyes wide-shut, searching for something hatefully-affectionate. Accompanied-lonely I'm delicate, Tear-smiles an infinite exhibit._"

I sighed as I stared at her. Her voice was something special. The melody was somehow somber and eager. Her voice went up and down coasting like a wave as it hit the overture.

"_Mirror, mirror I want to like what I see, how can I find a way to be happy? After so long I'm finally free, why can't I just be me. I was lonely now I'm scared. I feel like crying so unprepared. I have no clue how to help you, I despaired. Can't you see how I feel, I'm ensnared._"

"_Mirror, mirror I'm so lost. Once upon a time we were star-crossed. Covering my heart with creeping, crawling hoarfrost. So desperately we uncross. I was lonely now I'm scared. I feel like crying so unprepared. I have no clue how to help you, I despaired. Can't you see how I feel, I'm ensnared._"

She finished with a crescendo. I sat back and applauded a little. Her voice was like mental foreplay. How can I describe it? It was as though her voice could turn me on but it didn't have to. It was exciting to listen to. It was my own personal show. I had a private audience and I was tempted to use it and reach out and grab her. She'd probably allow it if I reached out and tried to take her and it was so tantalizing. But that felt like I'd be pushing it a little. I couldn't just have her any time I wanted, could I? That would be selfish. Even though she basically offered. It felt somehow like I would be emotionally abusing her and I didn't like that notion.

I stood up and walked behind her. I wrapped both hands around her waist. She leaned backwards into me. She set her hands on top of mine and rested her head against my collar. She felt so small wrapped up in me. I kissed her forehead and she shut her eyes and let out a little smile and gave me a small smirk. Then she felt the bandage around my hand and the relaxed smile fell away from her face. It dropped rapidly. Something like a grimace took its place and she held my bandaged hand and rubbed a little circle into it with her thumb oh so gently. It made the roasted flesh tingle. She turned her head and she shuffled a little in my arms in queer fashion.

"What? What are you doing?" I wondered.

She didn't respond. She just shook oddly. She sniffled and I pieced it together. She was crying.

"What's the matter?" I spun her around and took in the sight. She was beautiful even when she was crying. It really wasn't very fair. Nobody should be so gorgeous while teary eyed. Her eyes were a little red and puffy and her face was streaked by tears. She was sniffling and she reached up to wipe her face.

I took my thumbs and wiped away the flood before she could. The salty tears lapped at my fingers but they weren't stopping. How did I stop it? How could I stop it? What was I supposed to do?

"It's you, you dumb asshole. I have no idea how to help you." She hit me with a tiny fist on the chest. "What am I supposed to do with you? You're all messed up. How am I going to fix this?"

"I was always messed up. I was always going to be messed up. That's not on you."

"Because of how you were born?"

"I didn't have a birth," I couldn't help but correct her. I had no birth and no birthday. I was an unplaced monster in this world.

"You know what I meant," she went on. She was still crying. The tears were coming forth so fast. There was really no keeping up with them. They fell on her white and blue dress.

"I do. It was always going to fry my brain a little. I wasn't made to last or be a success. It's really not fair for you to blame yourself."

"What about the way you self harm?"

"What about it?"

"How do I help you stop? I can't watch you all the time. What am I going to do about it? I can't watch you hurt yourself."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're so far from fine it's not even funny and it's on me to help you."

"Why?"

"Because I love you. You- you- I-"

"It's Salem and all that. There's nothing you can do about it. That's why I left you before. I hated doing this to you. You want to help me but there's no way. And it sucks. It sucks being around people that you've hurt like I have."

"We forgive you for that."

"In a way that makes it suck even more. Can't you hold it against me? It would be so much better if you blamed me and held me fucking accountable for all the messed up shit I've done. But you keep on forgiving me. What do I do with that?"

"You'd rather I hated you?" She asked.

"Sometimes. Sometimes I would really rather you never stopped treating me like dirt."

"Why?" She seemed floored.

"Because it's what I deserve! Come on Weiss. I haven't really changed at all. Crush me under your foot. Punch me in the face. There's nothing stopping you. What are you waiting for?"

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You're not getting it. You should want to hurt me. I'm one of the bad guys."

"No you're fucking not. You're good. Is this why you hurt yourself?"

"A little bit. Also it feels good. I'm all crisscrossed in my brain."

"How do I get you to stop?"

"How should I know? Why is it so important that I stop?"

"Because I don't want you to be in pain! Gods you're such an asshole sometimes. How am I supposed to be upset with you? It's not even your fault. It's mental illness."

"I am my mental illness."

"No you're not!"

"This is me. I don't know what to tell you."

In that moment I felt a horrific guilt. I realized that I wasn't just hurting me. I was surrounded by empaths. Every time I burnt myself I was burning Weiss worse than I was burning me. I was roasting Ruby alive. Sure it felt good to me but then so did sex. Something clicked and I had to wake the fuck up. I had to stop or I'd be shoving Weiss's hand in the oven with me.

Gods above, I was so selfish. And the position I put Weiss in was straight awful. I was such an asshole. I needed to want to get better for me for them.

"I feel so guilty looking at you. I won't ever self harm again. I promise."

"You really promise?"

"Yeah. Look at what I'm doing to you. I'm such a monster. What have I done? Look at where I've brought you."

"This sounds like more self hatred."

"It is… I… I promise to try and stop that too."

"You deserve to be happy. You can't be happy hating yourself. Even if you killed Salem, you'd be fucking miserable. You deserve to be happy."

"I don't know how to be happy. I'm super fucking bad at it."

"Let me help you."

"I'll try. I promise to try," I muttered. "I'd kill myself for you."

"I don't want you to kill yourself. I want you to live. Can you live for me?"

"It would be easier to die," I confessed.

"I know. What I want from you is hard. Maybe it's unfair for me to ask you to."

"I'll try that too. I can try that too. Anything. Ask me for anything. Ask me for everything. Please. Once upon a time all I wanted in the world was the opportunity to do anything to impress you. That hasn't really changed at all."

"You don't have to worry about trying to impress me."

"I still owe you. I owe you everything. I'll do my best. I'll turn my life around. Starting today. No more bullshit."

"Thank you," she whispered. She'd finally stop crying, thank the merciful gods. She came in close and squeezed me tight. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her as close as possible. I hugged her tight enough that she let out a little whimper but not a bad one.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Weiss and I took a shuttle up to the satellite. I probably could have picked her up and flown there myself but there was a process to these things. I couldn't just use my superpowers to skirt the rules. Well, I could but I shouldn't.

"How may I direct you?" A robotic assistant asked us by the entrance. The Vytal Festival arena had been renovated entirely and was unrecognizable.

"We'd like to make a video call," Weiss said. I stood behind her with my arms by my sides and tried to look passable. I let her take the lead. I was never much for social interaction and she was talented at it. Fuck me, why did she have to be so talented at everything? She made scum bags like me look like dogshit. I think- I think that's self hatred. I got to knock that off. Fucking idiot. Oh shit, there I go again. What a dope.

"This way." The assistant gestured and I followed Weiss and the colored strips on the floor. Where the arena used to be there were rows and rows of booths for teleconferencing. We stepped inside one and made use of the seats inside.

Everything was cold Atlas grey. The arena used to be open to the sky but a dark dome had been built over the entire stadium and enclosed the rows and rows of booths.

"Collect call for Ruby Rose please," Weiss asked the machine.

"_Ding Dong_." The machine chimed. "Just a moment while we place your call."

The device buzzed for a second or two until the holographic screen lit up before us to show off Ruby. She was so drop dead gorgeous. Her silver eyes were bright and her hair was parted with long bangs that drifted off one side of her face. Her hair was still dark with red tips that made her eyes flash. She was wearing a corset that really pushed her breasts out. Yang had some serious competition. Ruby had really developed into a young woman. And boy she was womanly. I had nearly forgotten. She was a real stunner.

"Hey guys!" Ruby waved.

"Hello Ruby," Weiss said.

"Good to see you Rubes. You're looking fantastic," I cut in.

"Well I've been better. It's a little lonely over here."

"Poor thing," Weiss tutted and Ruby pouted.

"Don't make fun of me! I miss you both. And Cloud it's been so long. Way too long. I've got all your letters but I miss the real you. I want to meet you."

"Soon, sweetheart," I agreed. "Whatever you want."

"I have some missions over here still but I want to see Beacon again. Yang and Blake are fine by the way. But they have each other. It's difficult to not feel like a third wheel to my sister and her girlfriend."

"Fair enough," I commented.

"We're teaching together over here so we're not going anywhere. You had better come to us. And Cloud and I have been talking. He's willing to try and have your family, Ruby."

"He is? You are?! That's wonderful! I knew that we shouldn't let Salem rule our lives."

"I…" I started. They both looked at me. Suddenly the booth felt tight with it's cool grey walls. "I'd prefer to destroy my Mother. But I don't know how long I have."

"It's bad, Ruby. Take a look." Weiss reached over and lifted up my tunic. The bright orange scars the scorpion had left on my body were there along with purple and red splotches like hickies but they were massive.

I folded my shirt back down and gave Weiss a look out of the corner of my eye.

"That is bad. And we really don't know how long you have?" Ruby asked.

"Merlot indicated I didn't have much time," I admitted.

"That's not all. He's been self harming."

"He's what?!"

"Weiss, come on."

"Not a choice. I'm asking. Go on and tell her," Weiss rapped out.

I sighed. "I like burning myself. The pain feels good. Mother has my mind all twisted up. Really just any intense sensation that tingles my nerves is just the best. Not much else to say other than that."

"He's promised to stop and I've been doing some reading. The next time he feels like hurting himself he's supposed to snap a rubber band on his wrist, or hold an ice cube or have a hot shower. Or even ask me for sex."

"Kill him with kindness, Weiss."

"It's not that big of a deal."

"Shut up, Cloud," I did. "You've always been self destructive. I'm glad Weiss is doing something about it," Ruby shot out. "I tried for months and months to help him with his self hatred. I hope you make more progress with it than I did. I really had no idea how to approach it and help him," Ruby directed at Weiss.

"I'm working on it. But you got the go ahead on your family. Little progress," Weiss said.

"I had better work fast then. I want to start trying when we next see one another if we're really so short on time."

"Is that a good idea?" I asked. "Sweetheart we don't even know if I'm firing off live ones."

"Don't you want to see your babies' faces?" Ruby shot back. "I want you to."

I raised my hands in surrender. "The only other thing I need to do is stop my father. He can't just go around making more attempts at whatever the fuck I am."

"Hit him, Weiss. He's doing it again."

"He likes when I hit him!"

"Weiss does it so affectionately. It's darling," I defended.

"You're incorrigible."

"Well do something. He can't keep getting away with it. I won't have any awful negativity around my babies and Weiss won't either. Will you, Weiss?"

"No I suppose not. You'll have to change, Cloud."

They both looked at me and I felt penned in like a dog in a kennel. "I'm doing my best…" I managed.

"It will have to do."

"We love you, Cloud. You can do it. Master yourself and all that."

I flushed a little. Ruby was hard to look at when she stared at me so earnestly. She meant what she said and it was hard to avoid. A potentially comfortable truth that wouldn't stop poking me. I had done so much for her in that past. I was ready to slay her enemies back when they were just her's. I'd do more in the future if she asked me to. I'd do anything for her. For both of them. It wasn't really fair.

My life had been pretty hard. But at least I had this. I had these two. I...I needed to be grateful that Pyrrha hadn't allowed me to die with her. I needed to work on that. It was hard but true. I had the rest of my life in front of me if I didn't blow it. I could have so much life. I didn't have to be all death and decay until the end. I could also be birth. I could be a hurricane of vivacity.

I just had to work at it. And maybe I could find a cure. And maybe I could see my children grow up a little. What more could a speck like me ask for? I deserve nothing and I had so much when it came down to it. But it was something that could be taken away from me. It should be jealously guarded. I needed to become a dragon looming over my horde and defending it. And I could be.

"He's also smoking again. He never mentioned that in his letters. It must have slipped his mind."

"Cloud…"

"We've talked about it a little. I'm not sure it's the best option but he makes a good case for it. He doesn't have good things to say about the antipsychotics he was on in Atlas and he isn't optimistic about trying them again."

"Him? Not optimistic? Say it isn't so."

"Yeah well believe it or not."

"Har har," I managed.

"And you Weiss? How are you settling in?"

"I'm good. Cloud and I share a dorm at Beacon. Teaching is hard and I'm really not sure how I'm supposed to mend everything that was broken in the attack. Tensions are still so high. Some students lost their parents in the attack and not to Grimm. It's a serious issue and it can't be ignored or swept aside."

"Then confront it head on. I'm sure your best is good enough, Weiss."

"Can we talk again next week?" Weiss asked Ruby.

"Sure. I'll make myself free. I love you Weiss. I love you Cloud. Talk to you later."

"Love you Rubes."

"I love you Ruby, don't ever forget that. Goodbye for now."

Weiss cut the connection. A good thing too because I didn't have the heart to.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	158. In the Music Box I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Professor Strife! Professor Strife is that you?! Do you have a moment to answer a couple questions?"

Weiss and I were heading to a shuttle to leave the satellite after our conversation with Ruby. It had been fantastic to see her face again. I missed her so much that my heart ached. The pain hadn't been real until I saw her again. And having to tell her about when I self harmed had been a wake up slap. I needed to get better and not just for my sake. I wasn't just hurting myself when I self harmed. It was a trap, a trick. And something I could easily fall into. Luckily I had Weiss to pull me up and out.

I glanced over at the person calling my name. She had dark purple hair and brown eyes. She was tall for a girl. Maybe five-nine. She held her scroll out to me and it was already recording.

"Oh, and aren't you Weiss Schnee? Schnee heiress?" The woman asked.

"Former Schnee heiress," Weiss corrected bitingly. "Come on, Cloud."

"Wait! People want to hear what you have to say. You're the youngest Professor to teach at any of the major schools ever."

I gave Weiss a sideways glance that she met. She shrugged a little.

"Make it quick."

"Is it true that you fought in the fall of Beacon as a student?"

"It is… I had a different name back then. I used to be Jaune Arc."

"Why'd you change your name?"

"That's personal. Suffice to say that I didn't like who I used to be. It's better this way. A new name for a new weapon and a new life."

"And did you fight in the recent bombings as well?"

"I did."

"How did you get there so fast? Beacon is quite a ways from the shipyards."

"Part of my grab-bag is flight. I flew there."

"Would you comment on your semblance? You mentioned that it's a grab-bag."

"Strength and speed and flight mostly. It makes me better. It makes me better at nearly everything. It gives me an intense neutral game and makes my advantage state oppressive. It's a comeback factor that can get me out of disadvantage at a price."

"Would you clarify what you mean by 'neutral game' and 'advantage state?'"

"Neutral is when two people have no positional advantage over the other. It's your understanding of the space you're threatening and the space your opponent is threatening and your relationship between the former and the latter. Advantage state is when you do have a positional advantage over your opponent. They are already in a space you are threatening and they are in danger. Disadvantage is the reverse. It's when you are unable to threaten your opponent and are trapped in a space they are occupying."

"It sounds complex," she pointed out.

"That's… why we have classes."

"Would you ever compete in a tournament?"

"Unlikely."

"And are you and Miss Schnee an item?"

"We are."

"That's interesting…" She commented.

"Is it?"

"Where did you two meet?"

"We both attended Beacon together."

"Cloud," Weiss muttered to get my attention.

"That's all for now. No more questions."

"Would you be willing to do a longer interview at a later point."

"I don't see why not. Just so long as the questions stay mostly to my position at Beacon."

"Thank you so much for your time." She pulled the scroll back away from me. Weiss tugged on my arm and I followed her.

"Was it something I said? Did I fuck up?" I asked Weiss in a low tone.

"No. You did fine. She could easily have been more predatory and sensationalist. She wasn't really. Or didn't seem to be. You just have to be careful. I've done the occasional interview after my father would show me off at a gala or recital. I always had support and I was a kid so they used gloves. All the people who interviewed me were also carefully vetted by my father. I was just worried about what you might let slip. You're usually pretty tight lipped so it wasn't a major concern but it was still something I thought I should warn you about. You can never be too sure with journalists. She was starting to stray into your personal life."

"And that's bad. You want me to keep you and Ruby wrapped up? I can do that."

"Maybe. I didn't really plan for this. It's something I hoped to leave behind with the dust company. But you're a public figure. You're good looking and charming and powerful. You need to be on alert. You never know what they were really after until the article is published."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Would you actually never compete in tournaments? You could do very well."

"I don't really want to give people the opportunity to study my abilities. Part of the real advantage of my semblance is the element of surprise. I get Limit and I take it and I use it to kill you. If you're watching out for that you might stop me from charging it or interrupt me mid-use. If I have that surprising edge I can knock just about anybody to zero in a few heartbeats. But not if they're ready for that sort of thing."

"Is it something somebody can really stop? You keep it mostly charged all the time and then use it immediately to kill somebody. There isn't much time for anybody to really act. Even if they see your semblance coming there's nothing they can do about it."

"I'm going to get weaker. Weiss. This is my peak. It's all downhill from here in terms of power. I ache on the inside. You haven't seen any of the seizures but they happen. I can't afford to lose any advantage."

"It's your decision. I was just curious. Do you really think it's going to get that bad?"

"Yeah. I really do."

"I want to start."

"What?"

"I'm getting off the pill and I want to start trying."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Cloud. I'm sure."

"... Are you really sure? With me?"

"Yes. With you. Is that surprising?"

"A little… You're really really sure?"

"Oh for the love of… yes! I want your kids. I want to have them with Ruby."

"How many?"

"Two."

"Whatever you want."

"Don't be limp."

"That's not what I meant. I'd do anything for you. I'd fly to the moon and put it back together if you asked me to."

"That's a bit much."

"I always wanted a life with you one day and now I have it. I get a little overexcited and can't do a damn thing about it."

"It's sweet. You tend to overthink things, though. Think about being a good father. You're going to have a lot of kids."

"Daughters?"

"Probably a few to dote on."

"Sons?"

"You'll have to show them how to be a man."

"Fuck me."

"That's the plan."

And then she walked away and made me watch her go. I shook it off. I caught up easily enough.

If she had asked me to put the moon back together it would probably be easier than being a truly good parent. This was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done hands down and I wasn't sure I was up for it. Kids were fucking hard, man. They were the absolute hardest. Doing well was not going to be like flying a kite. It was going to be like hitting the ground hard.

It was going to be different from training Rose. It was all encompassing and it was on me. I had to get better. I had to do better than my best. Because this wasn't about me. At the very least I wasn't alone. I had my two closest people beside me and in on it with me. They were going down the same rabbit hole I was. It was scary. It was true. I had Ruby and I had Weiss to help me out. They were both going to be fantastic mothers and if I could be one tenth as good as they were those kids would turn out better than alright.

Weiss was singing softly again. Her voice was so good. She sounded like what sex felt like.

"_Diana, oh closest moon in the sky, your shattered face does become me; your millions of pieces do fly by; encircling and longing to be free._"

"_Lonely body ringed by little light; I see my face like thou art a mirror; a pool to me of plain warm silver; drifting to rest now, no need to fight._"

"_Accompanied in a timeless dance; companions are whole and unbroken; two compatriots leave in a shining trance; Artemis's curved touch leaves much unspoken._"

"_Once a friend and now become a lover; red faced and crimson like rose petals; you kiss, embrace and leave each other; waiting while your white body settles._"

"_She leaves you colored vividly; yet you remain completely composed; is it weakness or is it dignity; there's no embarrassment in being exposed."_

"_Naked thou art beside your sister-wife; can thou be content with circles you ran? A long death following a short life; you both touch and end where you began_"

"_Your bright husband you both reflect; powerful Ra shedding energy like no other; with scorching rays he doth eject; much light hath he your husband-brother._"

"_Three you are united but never can you entreat; near misses and close eclipses; pale eternities roll by it's just a treat; gravity will bring you together and deliver you those kisses._"

"_But as your lips doth finally meet; you die a yellow death as a trio; a farewell and a great last retreat; a final trace, this you completely know._"

"_Still you three spheres springing sway; together a new life above Remnant's face; Oh, Diana, your pieces in a great grey bay; your husband leaves-sets first, he sets the pace._"

"_He'll bring you with him when he goes; the fragments of your body he swallows; an end at long last to every Grimm; your sister vanishes too, her rose body follows._"

"_You intertwine no more at long long last; no more circles do you obliquely pace; your first touch it came and passed; your heart provides one last final race._"

Her voice rose and fell and I listened. I ached a little with her words and her tone. The feeling she put behind each note was unreal and it made me feel. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to live. I wanted to die. I wanted whatever she wanted and I wanted to make her smile. It hurt so bad to be loved and to love. It sliced like a razor even when it felt good. It was a pleasurable agony on the edge of something burning deep in my chest.

She could make my heart stop and then restart it with her voice if she wanted to. I felt compelled to reach out and grab her hand and squeeze it tightly and firmly. She looked up at me and I felt strong in that moment. The challenges that were coming my way weren't real obstacles if I didn't allow them to be. It was as hard as I wanted it to be. It was as easy as counting if I felt like it. And I could feel like it.

Things had been so hard this far. But that was my fault. I wanted it to be hard. The rest of my life could be easy if I wanted it to be. And why not? Maybe I deserved a break. Maybe I deserved for my life to be easy for once. Maybe I deserved a real family. A family that I had built. I just had to communicate with them and allow them to talk to me as well. We could all express our needs and have them met and be an absolutely wonderful union.

"Marry me," I half asked, half demanded of Weiss.

She gave a little start at my tone.

"I don't have a ring to give you but you shouldn't trust me to pick something like that out anyways. I have no idea what beauty is. I just know it when I see it or hear it and I'm feeling it with you. So you should marry me. Especially if we're going to have kids. We can pick out three rings and surprise Ruby. We can ask her together when we see her next. Or six rings, maybe. One for each of us to each other. Whatever you want. The details don't matter to me. But I do want to marry you. So tell me yes."

"I think the six ring idea is a good one…"

"Is that how you say yes to me?"

"I can see how hard you're trying. You'll be a good father."

"For the time I have left."

"Don't bring this moment down."

"I can't lie to you."

"Can't or won't?"

"Either. That was an older me that tried to pull that off. It was the sort of me that died. It died a long time ago. Gods above it's been so long. But some things haven't changed. I have always wanted you. That's been a constant throughout my life. From my earliest days at Beacon to those late evenings in Mistral that's been the case. I want to make you happy and hear you sing. It's like a private show just for me. I love it. I love you. I'll conquer myself for you. And I can make you happy. That's why you should say yes and marry me. I don't have time. The one thing I don't have is time. I can't waste a second more of it without you as my bride. Such a waste. It's intolerable that we aren't already engaged or something. I'm short on time and I have to fill it with as much as I can before the end. That means you. So you should say yes to me. At Beacon you always shut me down and justly so. I was dishonest with everything. I was so fake. But now I'm real. You've made me real. So you should marry me, don't you think? Isn't it about time? Gods am I too late already? How much more will I waste? I'm tired and I want to be whole. For once in my life I want to be made complete. So won't you agree and marry me?"

"Of course I'll say yes."

"Maybe my prayers are answered. Maybe the gods are listening. Maybe I'm a lucky man."

"Do you feel lucky?"

"Sometimes. With you and Ruby I do. My little lights guiding me to shore. I'd be blind and lost without you. What would I do? Where would I be?"

"You'd be wallowing in your own misery. You'd be buried under the weight of the full brunt of the human emotional spectrum. You may even have taken your own life. But it's alright. We'll all be together and things will be right. Just as they were always meant to. I believe in shaping our destinies. I believe in a million trillion paths that we could maybe follow. I'm glad you picked this one. It's probably the best one you could have chosen. You played your cards right. You got two beautiful women. How many guys can say that? So you're good at shaping your life. It isn't luck. We were meant to be together. We were meant to be inseparable. We were meant to be a trio and a team in life. We were always going to be a family, always meant to be a family. You made the right call. You're shaping up and changing your life around. You're committed. You're honest."

"I've been committed to psychiatric hospitals."

She hit me with the back of her hand on my chest and smiled up at me. I fucking loved when she did that. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"Alright, alright."

"You've changed in all the ways that matter since those days at Beacon. I only regret not seeing all this in you sooner. You're semblance is about pushing yourself. It's the essence of who you are. You were created to be a puppet. You were meant to be a slave. You defied all that and I admire that in you. You overcame your evil nature through perseverance and hard work. Ruby was born good. You worked to become good despite an evil birth. In a way it's more impressive than being created pure. You had to be reforged and melted down and purified. That takes work and effort and I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you that it hurts. So listen to me when I say I'll marry you and that I love you."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	159. In the Music Box II

**School started today. I'll let you know how that will affect the update schedule as things progress.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"_Please rest like you belong here; your chest is heaving; I listen to your breathing; you don't have to disappear._"

"_Soar out over the long land; and as you're leaving; watch the city receding; is it everything you planned?_"

"_Do you want me t' take it off? Like a loom weaving; together we are cleaving; so weak you can barely cough._"

Weiss's voice rose on the first few syllables. Then it wobbled at a high register. Then it fell back down again. Then she reached a chorus.

"_I want to see the light when it finally burns out; and I want to feel you against me when you make me shout. Your watch ticks beside my head but I hardly hear it; you know that it is not something I am prone to admit. My hands reach-touch your face and bring you in for a kiss; gods above, save-help me, your watch is so merciless."_

"_I want to see the light when it finally burns out; and I want to feel you against me when you make me shout. Your watch ticks beside my head but I hardly hear it; you know that it is not something I am prone to admit. My hands reach-touch your face and bring you in for a kiss; gods above, save-help me, your watch is so merciless."_

Then she fell back into the old pattern.

"_This our tangle embody; The thread is spinning; watch as our cord is thinning; strain me against my body._"

"_Strands of light through the windows; undo my clothing; pull-tug 'way on my dressing; intertwinment continues._"

"_Heat courses through the wire; gossamer braiding; I listen to your moaning; I take time to admire._"

"_I want to see the light when it finally burns out; and I want to feel you against me when you make me shout. Your watch ticks beside my head but I hardly hear it; you know that it is not something I am prone to admit. My hands reach-touch your face and bring you in for a kiss; gods above, save-help me, your watch is so merciless."_

"_I want to see the light when it finally burns out; and I want to feel you against me when you make me shout. Your watch ticks beside my head but I hardly hear it; you know that it is not something I am prone to admit. My hands reach-touch your face and bring you in for a kiss; gods above, save-help me, your watch is so merciless."_

"_When the wick finally breaks; our sweat is clinging; the patient clock keeps ticking; I lay back and feel my aches._"

"_Attire scattered 'cross the floor; You leave me panting; your small smirk-smile is roping; plan to leave me wanting more."_

"_With each breath a hurricane; small fingers groping; aura so intoxicating; I easily see your pain."_

"_I want to see the light when it finally burns out; and I want to feel you against me when you make me shout. Your watch ticks beside my head but I hardly hear it; you know that it is not something I am prone to admit. My hands reach-touch your face and bring you in for a kiss; gods above, save-help me, your watch is so merciless."_

"_I want to see the light when it finally burns out; and I want to feel you against me when you make me shout. Your watch ticks beside my head but I hardly hear it; you know that it is not something I am prone to admit. My hands reach-touch your face and bring you in for a kiss; gods above, save-help me, your watch is so merciless."_

"You know what's hot, Weiss?" I asked her as we laid in bed together. She was snuggled a bit distantly to keep from getting too hot but she stayed touching me. She didn't like being hot; she preferred to sleep at like sixty degrees. And I was comfortable when she was comfortable.

"What's that?"

"And it doesn't turn me on per se. But it also doesn't not turn me on."

"Tell me."

"When you sing. You sound amazing. Your voice is so gorgeous I could seriously listen to it for hours."

"What if our babies have nice voices and can sing. Imagine some daughter of yours carrying a melody."

"That's pretty fucking slick. Not going to lie."

"Start working on your swearing."

"Yeah alright."

"I mean it. I don't want that around my children and Ruby won't either. Work on it."

"I will. You got it."

"I suppose we should get up."

"I suppose… I really don't want to. I want to lay in bed with you."

"We have to teach. You get up first."

"Me?" I asked. My scroll buzzed on my table. I reached over and grabbed it. "You've reached Strife."

"We're calling in our favor. We need you and Neapolitan to meet with us and we need you to do it tonight. We're running a shipment and we need you to look after it. Make sure that it makes it to its destination. It's not drugs or people. Just dust. Can you handle all that?" It was Noir's voice.

"You got it. We can make that happen. Keep up the good work on your end."

"See you," he hung up.

"Who was that?"

"A criminal contact I have in Vale. He helped me with the bombing and killing Hazel Rainart so I owe him two favors. Him and his sister both."

"What sort of favors?"

"Pretty much anything. They need people killed or something like that then I'm their man. Money doesn't matter to hunter trained people working in crime. Money is like toilet paper."

"It's not so much different than how things get done between big businesses. Money isn't much of an object for really large corporations but favors and deals can make or break things. I'm not really surprised that criminals operate in mostly the same ways. Big business and criminals are often the same people."

"That's pretty much how it goes. If you need money you can get it or take it easily. Favors and contacts are how you get shit done. Not to toot my own horn but I'm a powerful huntsman and I can pretty much wreck any one person when it comes down to it. Neo's powers have more utility so I offered to loan out her powers. She follows my lead and does what I say. We're friends so we don't operate on favors. We just do shit for each other."

"I want to meet her."

"Neo? Why?"

"She's your friend. Why wouldn't I want to meet her? And she did work for Roman and she tried to kill Yang. If she's going to be around I want to get to know her. Do you really trust her?"

"Neo's a bit of a monster. I wouldn't let her around my kids but I don't want to abandon her. I trust her pretty far. She cares about me. Plus I also maybe slept with her."

"You what?"

"I was on a lot of drugs and I don't remember that night."

"What drugs?"

"Alcohol, greens, and hyper."

"Wow. You really didn't care about your brain."

"I was going through a lot at the time. Give me a break."

"So you slept with her. Did anything else happen."

"Maybe I slept with her. And nothing else happened. Ever. No kissing, some hugging, no other touching."

"She won't tell you if you slept together?"

"She's a sadist. It's funnier to her if I don't know. If I let her know it bothers me it would just give her more power."

"Interesting friend you have there."

"Beggars can't be choosers, alright? I've never had that many friends. Cut me some slack. We weren't together back then and it probably didn't happen. Maybe. She's mostly alright though. Mute and quiet as all hell."

"Language."

"Right. Right. You can meet her. It won't be a long discussion. You can lay down the law or claim your territory or whatever you women do."

"Is that what you think we do?"

"I have no idea. I really don't understand women very well for someone with one girlfriend and one fiancé. I don't have a clue."

"You're really quite the lady's man. Who would have figured?"

"Not even me. Not even the start of Beacon would I have imagined getting all the way with not one but two women."

"At the same time. And maybe even three."

"And maybe three. Wow."

"You are just blown away by this."

"I really am. I am floored. Did you think that you were bisexual and would you have thought you would be dating Ruby or me? It's incredible."

"I suppose not…"

"We had better get out of bed for real."

"I really don't want to."

"You're adorable. Aren't you touch hungry."

"A little. Be nice to me."

"I am, darling." I kissed her forehead and got out of bed.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

"Neo this is Weiss. She's my fiancé."

Neo cocked her head at me.

"It's recent that we got engaged. You're one of the first people to find out," I explained and Neo nodded. "Weiss meet Neo."

Neo shook her head.

"Neapolitan?" I tried.

Neo nodded.

"Weiss meet Neapolitan," I corrected.

"We've met already. Once back when she still worked for Roman." Weiss folded her arms across her chest and actually managed to look down on Neo. Weiss wasn't tall. There weren't many people she could glare down at. "So what? You interpret for her?"

"Sometimes. It's easier than you think. Neo has her ways of making herself heard. When we first started it was mostly charades and guessing on my end but eventually I figured it out. That or she compromised."

We were in my office in Beacon with Weiss standing beside me while I sat. I reached out and pulled her into my lap. She gave an adorable squawk but didn't try to get up when I wrapped my arms around her waist.

"What about sign language?" Weiss asked.

"Never tried it. I don't know any."

Neo began making a complicated series of gestures.

"She knows sign language," Weiss observed.

"Meh. Fifty-fifty odds she's fucking with us."

Neo mutely giggled behind her hand as though that would hide it in some way. I knew her too well. The way her shoulders shuffled as she laughed at me was all too familiar.

"So did you two or did you not-" Weiss started. I cut her off.

"-Don't Weiss. Don't give her any leverage over you. She preys on that sort of thing."

"I want to know."

"Go ahead and ask, then. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Did you two sleep together or not?"

Neo grinned like a cheshire cat. She looked up at the ceiling and put a finger on her chin and cheek and tapped it against her face as though deep in thought. She held that pose for a long time. Literally for a minute. She fooled nobody in the room.

"I asked you a question. A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice."

Neo held both hands over her heart as though taken aback and stunned. She feigned a hurt look and pouted.

"I warned you Weiss. She's been holding it over me forever. She won't give it up very easily. It's too much fun for her to keep me in the dark."

Neo paused and held her hands together in front of her as though she was about to start praying. Then she slowly moved them apart. Slowly and ever so slowly she reached a point about seven inches apart.

"She did! You two had sex!" Weiss exclaimed and pointed.

"Bullshit. She's guessing. She has no idea. She just kept spreading her hands until she provoked a reaction out of you."

"She stopped before I said anything! She knows how-how-ugh! You must have slept with her."

Neo silently cackled. Her hands fell to her sides.

"We didn't sleep together. Probably," I said. "She's just trying to sow discord. It's what she does."

"She knows how long you are! She fucking knows."

"She's turning you against me! It's what she's good at."

"You slept with her. It happened. You need to tell Ruby."

"Oh gods don't make me tell Ruby. It was such a dark time in my life. I was on so many drugs."

"That's your own fault."

"I had no idea if Ruby would take me back."

"You have justifications now?"

"I'm begging you... she is the master of lies."

"Quite the friend you have here."

"She's dependable."

"And a good lay. She's quite pretty."

"Don't be jealous. It didn't happen. Probably. I don't think so."

"Can you drop that probably with honesty?"

"No. But-"

"You slept with her. Deal with it Cloud. You may as well have."

Neo held her hands seven inches apart on her belly. Then she fluttered her eyes upwards as though in pleasure. Then she burst out into silent peals of laughter.

"Neo don't-" I started.

"She absolutely knows!"

"Weiss please… you're only encouraging her. She's playing off of you. She's feeding off your anger."

"Wake up Cloud! How many girls like you?"

"You and Ruby and Pyrrha. That's it I swear. I really didn't have you pegged as the jealous type. You don't mind Ruby and I."

Neo made a little heart out of her hands and blew me a kiss.

"That's Ruby. Ruby and I are also together. It's different. This hussy is separate from that. Look at how she dresses with those hip windows. I bet she's a slut and that's why she's been following you around."

"Darling…"

"Don't darling me when I'm mad at you!"

Neo stomped a foot angrily. She started to pull her chotto.

"Alright…" I started holding out a hand.

Weiss shot up and grabbed the hilt of her own rapier.

I activated my semblance and picked Weiss up with one hand. Then I held out my other hand and pushed Neo back with two fingers on her forehead.

"Alright! Neo, you've had your fun. Weiss, she's just baiting you. Can't you see that?"

"You need to apologize to Ruby and break off anything you have with her," Weiss demanded.

"She's my friend. You're blowing this out of the water. It's not like I want to have slept with her."

"Just another girl to add to your bedpost notches. First Pyrrha-"

"-Below the belt - Weiss," I said with some real anger. "Take that back. Right now."

Weiss flinched at my tone slightly in my arms. I set her down and looked her dead in the eye.

"Go on. Take it back," I insisted.

"Fine. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought her up. But there are some unresolved feelings there that you, Ruby, and I need to work through."

"Granted," I agreed readily. Pyrrha was deeply confusing and really complicated. It made my chest hurt. The thought of all of my team did. But Pyrrha was the sorest spot to me because… because of what could have been. That sucked. That really really sucked. And I didn't know until it was too late and I was pretty sure I was never really going to get over that. Killing Cinder had done nothing to lessen my agony. "But come on, you know I'm not like that. And Pyrrha is… complicated. It's really hard to talk about her. It makes me feel weak and powerless just like I used to be. I have serious unresolved issues where Pyrrha is concerned. But I'm willing to try, alright?"

"Fine. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry about this whole mess with Neo. I shouldn't have been on so many drugs and lost myself. That's on me."

Neo tapped me on the shoulder.

"What?"

She cocked her head to the side and looked up at me.

"Who's Pyrrha?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Go fuck yourself, Neo."

Neo held up a finger and made a ring shaped hole with her other hand and she thrust in and out.

"Fuck," I interpreted with all my skill.

She pointed at herself.

"You."

She pointed at me.

"Myself. Fuck you myself? Knock it off, Neo."

"She's doing it again," Weiss pointed out.

"You have to not give her ammunition and you just handed her an arsenal."

"What a friend to have."

"She's not so bad."

"If you say so."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	160. In The Music Box III

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Weiss and I went into town to find an engagement gift for Ruby. We decided between the two of us that as pairs we would get engagement gifts for the others. Ruby and I would get something for Weiss. Weiss and I would get something for Ruby. Ruby and Weiss would get something for me. That was fair and it kept things from being a competition in any regard. It made things cooperative and stopped us from having to get six gifts. It was better this way.

"I want identical wedding bands," Weiss informed me and I just nodded. If that was what she wanted then that was what she wanted. Ruby wouldn't have a problem with it. We both knew that. She would probably like the idea. "I don't know what to have it made out of yet but Ruby and I will decide. I figure you don't care. Well, not that you don't care. You just don't sweat the little details. There's so much to plan with a wedding. Ruby and I will handle the lionshare of it."

"Ruby deserves something personal and sweet," I decided. "What are you thinking, darling?"

"Maybe a necklace? Or earings? Ruby is hard to get stuff for. She isn't very material. She doesn't care about jewelry."

"None of us do. You sure don't. You have quite the task set out for Ruby and I."

"Me? How are we supposed to get gifts for you? You don't want anything. There's literally nothing to get you."

"You could give me head and call it good."

She hit me in that darling fashion. I smirked and she smiled up at me. "I'm serious."

"I am too. I'll just be happy to wake up next to you and Ruby for my remaining days. I couldn't ask for more. Really. Honestly. I've gone through some serious shit but in a way I'm super lucky."

"And don't you forget it. But really, what do you want?"

"Nothing. You already know that."

"Damn it. You're going to be the worst. I better hope Ruby has ideas. Because I definitely do not."

"I'm easy. Engrave two rings with your signatures on them. One for both of you. Job done."

"No. We can't do that."

"Why not? I'd love it."

"You'd love anything we got you. That's the problem. It has to be meaningful and true."

"That is, isn't it?"

"No. Stop it. "

"Sure. But when you do run out of ideas I'm going to tell you I told you so."

"You're intolerable," she informed me.

"Then let go of my hand."

"Make me," she smirked. "We have to do something to Ruby's weapon," Weiss decided.

"You want to modify Crescent Rose? It's your funeral. Nice knowing you."

"Be serious for once."

"I am. Crescent Rose is Ruby's baby."

"No, her babies will be her babies. She knows that Crescent Rose is important, maybe even a member of her family. But she'd let us do something to it."

"But should we?"

"Yes. We just need to expand on it and make it more extreme. Make it even more Ruby."

"Like maybe make it so the blade reverses into a giant glaive?"

"Yes. That's perfect. It's a minor change relatively speaking. Ruby would love it."

"Modifying her weapon seems a little…"

"It's traditional for hunter weddings. You'll give Myrtenaster a modification and Ruby and I will tweak Corcea Mors."

"But we can't present that to her. We need something else too."

"What else is there that she loves?" Weiss wondered.

"Us? Blake and Yang? Her dad and uncle?" I listed.

"We'll invite them to the wedding along with Penny and maybe Oscar but it needs to be about us."

"A locket with photos of us in it," I suggested. "She'd treasure that forever. Until long after I'm stone cold dead."

"You're right she would. It's perfect. Let's get our picture taken. Do you have formal wear?"

"Shouldn't our hunter clothes be fine?"

"Maybe that's true. Maybe that's more genuine. Something kandid."

"Let's do it. Now I need to start brainstorming for you. Gods you're going to be tough. You're a hard nut to crack, Weiss."

"I try. At least I can say that. You do not. You have no excuse. You try and be easy but that just makes you more difficult. If you need something you just go out and get it and no matter what we get you you'll say you love it. It's you. You're the problem."

"Let's agree to disagree and get Ruby a nice necklace. Then we can schedule getting our picture taken. Sound good? I also need to run some favors for the Engelberts today."

"Should I meet them as well? Are they also friends of yours?"

"Not really. They're more business partners. The less they know about me the better. I need to be a mysterious figure who could snap and kill them at the drop of a hat."

"Not friends, then?"

"Not friends," I agreed.

"Are you… are you going to want to invite Neapolitan to the wedding?"

"I wasn't planning on it. She bothers you. She tried to kill Yang."

"But did you want to? Who else would you invite?"

"Who would you invite? What are you expecting me to say? My Mother? I don't have anybody else but team RWBY, really. I assumed that they would be invited. Would you invite your family?"

"Well, no. Maybe my mother? But I don't think so. Just my team and whoever else Ruby wants to invite."

"I'm in pretty much the same boat. Plus I may have slept with her. I can't invite her. She's a friend but it's not a good idea."

"Maybe just for the reception?"

"Not a good plan. I'll tell her about it and whatnot but I can't have her at my wedding. She'll just have to hold that. She should have been less of a monster to you. And me a little. It all comes around full circle."

"Okay. If that's what you want. You are allowed to invite people. It won't upset Ruby and I."

"I have nobody to invite who you two wouldn't also invite."

"Except Neapolitan."

"And again, that's not a good idea."

"What about the Rosé girl you trained."

"Nah. It seems to be a small wedding we've got planning. I can't invite the princess of Vale to a small wedding. It's fine."

"Okay. I was just checking."

Weiss and I walked into a jewlers. I was in my huntsman garb and had my weapon at my back. Weiss had Myrtenaster at her side as well.

"Sir and lady hunters," an elderly man in a suit with a greying beard came up to us and gave us a greeting. "What are you looking for today?"

"Oh, we're just brows-" I started but Weiss cut me off.

"We're looking for an engagement present for the third member of our trio. Maybe a locket for photos of the two of us."

"Did you have a color or metal in mind?" The man took it in stride. I shuffled back to give them space to talk and peered down at the rows and rows of rings. There were so many all with different colored stones and forming all sorts of different patterns. Thank the gods I'd be looking at this stuff with Ruby's help when I was picking something out for Weiss. Beyond the rings were earpieces of all flavors and shapes. Teardrops and hearts and precious stones carved and faceted in intricate detail.

"Silver and something red," Weiss decided.

"What price range were you two looking at?"

Weiss looked at me. I glanced up from peering down at the inlaid jewels. I shrugged. "Under twenty thousand?" I guessed. I still had more than two million and a nice salary.

The man's eyes widened and Weiss choked a little.

"Too little?" I guessed.

"I should think not. Please wait here while I pick out some pieces for you both to look at." The man spoke. Then he turned and walked over to a different section of the store and started grabbing little cut outs with necklaces wrapped around them from various display cases.

"That's quite a lot. Can you really afford that?"

"Beacon pays well and takes care of all my living expenses. And on top of that I have millions stashed away from Corneo. Neo and I robbed him blind and assaulted his manor. I bought a plane and two bikes with that money and I've barely shaved off three quarters of a million. And if we need money I can easily get some more. Don't worry. I'll be able to maintain your rich girl lifestyle."

"Asshole," she shot at me.

"Sounds like somebody needs some sugar."

She hit my arm with the back of her hand and smiled up at me. "Gods…" She sighed exasperatedly.

"You're only encouraging me."

"Why do you like when I hit you?"

"I like that you touch me. You're always so gentle. Gods it's so darling. Do it again. Touch me."

"I might. Later. Wouldn't that be nice? I might be less gentle then."

I leaned in close to her face until my mouth was inches from hers and I proudly heard her breath catch in her throat. "You're the one who likes it rough, dear." Then I stood back to my full height and towered most of a foot over her. She was so small. I could easily pick her up in my arms.

"Here we are sir and lady hunters." The salt and pepper haired man laid out a series of necklaces with tiny lockets. Some were heart shaped and others were oval. They were all smooth silver and some were encrusted with rubies. Weiss peered down at them. She pushed one that was absolutely bright and covered with gemstones aside. The man swept it away as Weiss dismissed it.

Weiss began to slowly pick and choose the ones she didn't like as much. She used her two fingers to shove one with a heart shaped locket and a single ruby in the center out of the way.

"How about this one?" I picked one with a circular locket surrounded by red gemstones.

"You like that one?" Weiss asked.

"They're all sort of blurring together for me. What do you think about it?"

"It's nice but it's a little flashy. Don't you think she wants something simple?"

"That does seem her style when it comes to jewelry. If she wears any at all it's plain."

"What do you think about this one?" Weiss picked up a simple oval locket with a ruby or perhaps a garnet at each point with a big triangular stone in the center.

"It's straightforward. Not too many gems. Some of these are really covered in stones."

The man pulled away a necklace with a square locket that had a red gemstone surrounded by diamonds and another which was circular and wreathed in pale stones.

"I like this one." Weiss picked up a locket which was a great triangle red gem and that was all. The stone was massive and singular with a tiny silver latch to open and close it.

"It's perfect. Let's get it."

"Are you sure?"

"Ruby will love it."

I paid the man a considerable amount and he wrapped it up in a velvety box for me. I took it and held it under my arm.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was off to meet the Engelberts with Neo at Junior's after my shopping trip with Weiss. I sent her off with Ruby's necklace and left her to set up our photography shoot. She had a taste that was a million times better than mine. She'd pick a wonderful location for me to stand around and smile in. That would be my job. Then we'd get a little photo and put it in the locket.

I walked into Junior's. Neo showed up beside me from an alleyway and fell into step beside me like my shadow. She smirked up at me. I wiped that off of her face.

"You're explicitly not invited to the wedding by the way," I told her.

Her smile ran away and she frowned at me. It sucks to suck, Neo.

"You shouldn't have taken so many steps to piss off one of the brides. You're such a bitch Neo. I know we never had sex. You just like causing trouble."

She shrugged as though to say, 'oh well.' Then she held her hands seven inches apart or so.

"That's what I'm talking about. You just wormed your way under Weiss's skin because you like that shit. You played a game and you've got to pay for it. You deserve to not be invited to my wedding."

Then she pointed between us and mimed drinking something.

"Fuck yeah we'll celebrate by drinking. We can absolutely. We won't tell my brides but it'll be a bit of a bachelor's party. You and I in particular. We'll have a blast. Like we always do."

We stepped through the glass and across the glass dance floor over to the bar and booths.

"But enough about that. It's time to work. Business business business. Get your game face on, Neo. Be careful on your end. It would really suck if something bad happened to you. I'd miss you, you understand? Are you capable of such emotion?"

She glowered up at me.

The Engelberts were inside waiting at a booth. Neo and I took some seats.

"So you need me to run security on a truck shipment?" I asked.

"And we need you to drive it. But yes that's pretty much it," Noir explained.

"And Neo?" I wondered.

"She'll be coming with me. I'm robbing and killing one of our competitors. I need her powers. I'll explain the whole plan in detail but suffice to say we're breaking and entering and killing some thugs in our way. Then our people will move in and steal the drugs," Lila said.

"That's two favors," I pointed out.

"That's what we thought," Lila agreed.

"Your terms are acceptable. Who am I following to this truck and where am I driving it?" I asked.

"Me. And we'll give you the location you're supposed to leave it. I'll send it to your scroll," Noir explained.

"Good. Let's get it. Lead me to this truck."

"Right now? Just like that? You're not going to ask what's in it?" Lila asked.

"Now I should. What's in it?"

"Dust crystals. It's very explosive. You'll be taking it to the docks. We'll sell it there," Lila explained.

"Good enough for me. And Neo isn't attacking the Malachites is she?"

"Would that be a problem?" Noir asked.

"A little. While I'm not on good terms with them they aren't my enemies."

"It's not the Malachites," Noir said. "It's the Trenchcoats."

"I'm not familiar with them," I said.

"They run drugs and sometimes people. They're our biggest competition in this regard," Lila went on for Noir. Then she took a cocktail. I stared at her. She seemed relaxed. Normally around me she was tense and nervous and it showed around her mouth. She was at ease. Or she was trying to be at ease. Noir seemed normal. Blunt and whatnot. But that edge of fear I normally picked up off Lila's aura was absent. I wasn't scaring her like I normally did. Was that a good or a bad thing? It was hard to say. There were advantages both ways you sliced that. Scared people often behave irrationally but you could make them cower. People who were not scared were often more unpredictable in their own way. But what did this mean for me? And Neo who would be going with her? Was there danger I couldn't smell? It was certainly possible. I reached out to my danger sense and felt a low hum. What did that mean? It was impossible to say. I didn't have a gut feeling that was bad about all this. But I did have some gut feelings. That wasn't very helpful to actually solving this thing and getting these favors done. It really depended on a bunch of factors.

"Why do you need me to secure this shipment. It seems like you're calling in some big guns for a little problem."

"Our competition may try and steal it. That's why we want you there. Kill anyone that tries to stop you. That sort of thing," Lila told me.

I shrugged. It mattered little.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	161. You Never Had a Name I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

Noir led me to a truck and I hopped in the driver's seat. I didn't bother fastening my seatbelt. If I was in an accident it was unlikely I would get hurt. Noir updated my scroll with the location data and I opened my headphones to listen to the navigation system. I was taking the truck to a warehouse near the docks. I wasn't sure why. And it didn't really matter. Noir and Lila obviously thought they needed real serious security on this thing. The dust must be good stuff or to be used in something in particular. I was a touch curious but it wasn't my job to be curious.

I started driving through the streets which got more and more haphazard as I approached the docks. The streets started square and all orthogonal but when we approached the coast they formed strange geodesics. Where had I learned to drive? It seems as though I had always known. Had Mother taught me? Or Merlot? Merlot had wanted me to have all kinds of skills so that I could be useful to him. I know that I knew some computer and biological science and physics. Enough that I had been able to keep up and do alright in my normal classes at Beacon when I attended. I knew mathematics a little too but I also knew how to set up dust explosives and the like. That was interesting. What was I for? Had Merlot meant for me to be some kind of assistant? Or some kind of assassin? Or perhaps both? It was all so confusing. It had worked a little as well. I had enough scientific understanding to keep up with most discussions. I would be able to take notes for a real doctor well. And I would be able to kill people if that's what he needed too. Would my father try to make other children given my failure? I really needed to take action on that front. More of me could be a problem. Another would be bad. Multiple clones or the like would be disastrous. And sure at some point he must have taught me to drive and dance and other things. But the dancing thing must have been able to test my motor skills without giving me real combat training or some parallel motivation.

He must have realized I was a failure before moving on to any combat training and selling me off to Salem. How? Would I ever have any solid answers? Killing Merlot would be satisfying and morally justified but it wouldn't lead me to any truth. That's how killing Cinder went down. It was just and tasty but fleeting and it revealed to me no truths about the world. It just showed me myself as though by reflection. That was hard. I needed to interrogate Merlot if I wanted any of these answers. But did I really need any answers? Would learning the truth bring me happiness? Weiss and Ruby brought me joy. Learning about my past had only ever made me miserable. I didn't need any more of that in all likelihood. And yeah it would leave me unsatisfied in terms of my answers to some pretty basic questions forever. But they were the sort of questions I decided the answers to myself. I didn't let my parents dictate my life in any regard. So what did it matter?

Considering that my sisters were made by somebody else and all had the same last name I had to consider that it was my Mother that named me. I never had a name until I decided to call myself Cloud Strife. Jaune Arc was a dead boy. He died at Beacon. He just didn't know it until he fought in Haven. When I became Cloud Strife that was when I became me and separated myself from my parents' wishes. I had to decide for myself who I was and what I was for. That wasn't just true for me. Everyone had to do that. Weiss had to choose to rebel against her parents and Ruby didn't have to be a huntress. She could have been a doctor or anything she had wanted. Aura helped you decide your place in the world but it was just a crutch. It helped you along the path you chose. It didn't put in the elbow grease for you and it didn't decide that path. You had to do that on your own.

I was going to die young. Very young. But I had a plan to cram as much life as I could into however long I had left. Everyone could die each and every day and all they could do was taste as much life as they could before they finally bit it. And they could bite it at any time. That was something everybody had to come to terms with. I was just on a shorter timetable than most for sure. But I had to come to terms with that. And I had to remember that I was lucky. Two people loved me where most only got one. That was rare.

My sixth sense throbbed at me and I stopped the car. I opened the door and stepped out. There was a purple building next to me of cobbled brick leading up to a slanted roof of greying tiles. There was a quay where I was supposed to leave the car behind a gated fence of hexagonal wire. On the other side there was a red building leading up to a deep black roof. Holographic street lights loomed down on me from all sides but they gave way near the quay. I looked up and didn't see anybody. I was pretty close to the docks where I was supposed to end up. There was no one on the street or on the roofs near me.

Still my danger sense pulsed and I trusted it. I walked around the back of the truck. It was locked with a padlock.

I sliced it easily and opened the back.

There was dust. A great deal of it. Boxes and boxes but there were also wires and a small timer on a single red crystal. The Engelberts had me driving a bomb. They were trying to kill me. I checked the timer. Less than a minute left.

I glanced about. What could I do with this thing? I couldn't just run and leave it to explode. This much dust would kill somebody. I bent down and grabbed the tailgate and took off into the air. I picked it up and flew over the gate and dropped it into the ocean.

The truck teetered in the water and started to sink with great bubbles of air sploshing to the surface. Then it went off and it rocked the street I was standing on and parts of the pier sunk into the sea and water was blasted fifty feet into the air. If I had been driving that Limit or not I would have died. I'd walked off Raven's white dust blade but that was an infused blade that was part Titania and only a blade's worth. There had been crates and crates of dust in that truck. Probably upwards of at least a ton of explosives.

I had to kill the Engelberts now. Great. And here I thought we had a good working relationship. And Neo was off doing some favor for them too. I just had to hope she would be able to survive whatever they were up to with her. Neo was slippery but she wasn't invincible. They had split us up and not told me where Neo was. And this bomb would absolutely have killed me. They had made their move well but I survived due to my keen danger sense. I took off over the city and away from the sounds of sirens closing in on me responding to the explosion in the quay.

I shot Neo a message.

**Engelberts turned on us. Get out of there. Meet at Beacon.**

I landed at the warehouse the Engelberts had met me at before. I flew down and took an upwards rising swing that bit deep into the roof. I shattered my way inside and hovered down and into the warehouse. There were still drugs and packages lining the walls. I took a fire dust crystal from my pocket and slammed it into my chest. As the burning took me over internally and I activated Limit Break. Then I simply flew throughout the building and torched all of the packages and materials with my blaze.

When next I landed again it was at Junior's. I was still on fire a little. My weapon was in my harness and my gaze swept through the place. I knew it was unlikely that they were here. I still checked and then I marched towards Junior's office. A guard tried to get in my way but I just held out a hand and pushed on his face.

"Junior!" I snapped out. "Junior!"

"What?! What is it?"

I walked into his office and shut the door behind me. "The Engelberts tried to murder me. I'm going to have to kill them both. I need to know if you know of any safehouses or warehouses they own and give it all to me."

"Uh… sure. You got it." My anger must have been showing because he handed everything over to me without complaint or demanding a favor. He must have realized he would be lucky enough to survive the night. He started looking through files.

My scroll buzzed. The answering service indicated that it was Weiss.

"Weiss?" I asked the microphone.

"Cloud, why the fuck is Neapolitan outside our dorm?"

"Oh thank goodness she's alive."

"What? What's happening?"

"The Engelberts set up me to explode in the harbor. I was worried that they got to her too. I told her to head to Beacon. I'm going to tear up their safehouses and stockpiles and hopefully kill them as well. Sit tight. Don't kill one another. I'll swing past as soon as I can."

"I don't want her here."

"Kinda an emergency, Weiss. Just put up with it for a little while and then I'll be by."

"I don't like this."

"I almost exploded. I really could have died. I'm wrapping this up as soon as I can."

"Fine. See you when I see you. Good hunting."

"Love you," I valedicted.

"Love you, too," then we hung up.

"Have something for me," I demanded of Junior.

"I really honestly don't." Junior held up his hands in surrender. I wanted to reach out and grab him by the skull and fling him into a wall.

"Nothing? Not a damn thing?"

"No! They kept it all away from me expertly. I can tell you that they probably know you're still alive based on Lila's power. They'll probably make a run for it. You could watch the airfields."

I snarled. It was better than nothing.

"Do they have an airship?"

"Maybe? I don't know."

"I burned down a warehouse on the corner of 27th and Patterson that I know was theirs. Do they have any others?"

"Probably. I really don't know. They kept me as much in the dark as possible. It was smart of them considering where we are now."

"If they're in Vale I want to know. If they leave Vale I want to know that too. Make it happen."

"Please…"

"You don't want me to throw you in with them. Were you in on this too?"

"No. I swear. I had no idea."

"Make me believe you. Find them. I'm headed to the airfield. You have my number."

I left.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I patrolled the airfield from above. But without any real indication of which ship they could be in I was searching blindly. I was fumbling in the dark. I didn't have any more than the usual extrasensory perceptions besides what most hunters had and my Mother's 'gift.' Neither of which helped me determine which plane the Engelberts were in or taking. I was as blind and helpless as any other man. They Engelberts could take another shot at me if I wasn't careful.

I gave it up and went to Beacon. Neo was sitting outside my dorm. She looked bored and a little frustrated. It was her own fault Weiss hadn't let her in.

"You good?" I asked. Heat was still in my voice.

She nodded up at me and got to her feet from where she was sitting.

"They throw you under the bus too?" I wondered.

She shook her head. Then she cocked her face sideways in thought. Then warbled a hand.

"Sort of but not really?"

She nodded.

"Good. I'm glad you're safe."

She came up to me and hugged me.

"There was a bomb in that truck set to go off when I reached the pier or sooner if I was late. More than enough dust to kill me. They roped me in and set me up to die. I'm working on how to deal with them and I'm trying to leverage Junior. But he doesn't know anything."

She tapped her lips and turned her thumb down.

"I don't think he's lying if that's what you're asking. He has a healthy fear of both of us. He could be in on it though. I can't rule it out but it seems unlikely. At least to me."

She pointed at herself then mimed crushing a fist.

"Hand him over to you? Maybe...maybe… I don't want to alienate him. I'd like to work closely with him. Better play it safe where Junior is concerned. I burned down their warehouse but I didn't find them. They're still on the loose. Be careful out there. Keep your head low for the next week. I'll contact you when I know more. You can take off. Again, I'm glad you're safe. I thought that they killed you for a moment. They very nearly got me. Now get out of here so I can talk to Weiss. You made her not like you. That's your fault. Let's hope you make a better impression on Ruby. Think you can manage that?"

She shrugged absently and apathetically. She only really cared about my friendship. My fiancé and girlfriend could both hang in her books. I'd like to change that but doubted I could. You can't have everything, after all.

I stepped into my dorm. Weiss was by the dining room window pacing. She turned and looked at me when I entered. I was singed and covered in soot from eating fire dust and burning down that storehouse.

"What happened? Did you really blow up?" She asked, coming over to me. She took my face in both her hands and they felt cool against my cheeks. I sighed into the feeling of her cold hands. I reached up and cupped my hand over one of hers and pressed it more firmly against my face. I gave her palm a kiss.

"They had me driving a car bomb near the harbor. They wanted to light me up. And it totally would have worked if not for my danger sense. I got lucky. It was a good trap and I nearly paid for it."

"You're covered in ash."

"I went and burned down a warehouse I know was theirs. Full of drugs and other contraband. Just to make my presence sting. Then I put pressure on another contact. An information broker named Junior."

"More criminals?"

"I'm a criminal."

"Not like that."

"Exactly like that. And they're not so bad. Aurum in Atlas is good people."

"Didn't he make you try hyper?"

"He didn't make me. He offered it and I accepted."

"Look at what you're dragged into."

"It's the Engelberts. They turned on me. They have to die. Or go to prison. Either is fine."

"I'm glad you're safe."

"I'm fine. I got a little lucky today. My sense of danger isn't always the greatest but it came in clutch when it counted."

"Is it not keen?"

"Not compared to how good Ren's was and how good I suspect Ruby's is. I think her's is better than she lets on. And it gets muddled by this sort of seventh sense I have that was given to me by my Mother."

"I don't think you've mentioned this. What is it?"

"I can sort of feel Grimm."

"All of us can."

"No. Maybe I'm not explaining things right. It comes from that same place that lets me feel my sister and Salem. I know where she is all the time. I think I told you that."

"You did… this is concerning. You should have mentioned it sooner."

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault. There's so much going on with you all the time. I'm glad you made it through this today. I nearly lost you. You would have been gone just like that." She snapped her fingers. "I want you to give up the crime game."

"I need it to see my sisters coming and other agents of Salem."

Weiss worried her lip. It made me want to kiss her. So I did. I brought my hands up to her waist. She exhaled out her nose in a little sigh and she shut her eyes.

"We'll talk about it, then," she decided.

That was good enough for me.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	162. You Never Had a Name II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I was in the kitchen smoking some concentrate and blowing it out the window so the smell didn't linger in my dorm and bother Weiss. I let the burning pleasant amplification of my senses roast across my skull. Weiss came out to join me and saw me smoking. She stared at me long and hard.

"I don't want a smoker around my children. I want you to quit and try antipsychotics again," she informed me.

I was quiet. I set the nail and rig down. I wasn't sure I'd ever pick it up again.

"Nothing? You've got nothing to say to that?" She asked me in a double tap when I remained silent.

"I told you I would give it up if you asked me to," I murmured. "I guess I'm giving it up."

"Just like that? Even with how bad you make finding a good antipsychotic sound?"

"It's pretty bad. I'm not looking forward to it. And there's all kinds of sexual disfunction that can come with these sorts of meds. Premature ejaculation. Inability to ejaculate. Inability to get or maintain an erection. These can all happen and are pretty common on mood stabilizers."

"But you'll still do it?"

"I'd put Diana back together if you asked me to. Make no mistake, this is going to suck, though. Maybe we'll get lucky. I remember the meds they tried me on. Olanzapine, Saphris, Abilify, and Vraylar were their names. We're not starting from scratch again."

"Thank you, Cloud."

"I won't say 'no problem' but I will say 'you're welcome.'"

"I want to start planning our wedding but it's difficult without Ruby. She's going to want to pick out some of the more fun things. Or at least be a part of that planning. I was going to pick several dates and venues and see what she likes. I assume you don't mind?"

"Whatever you think is best is best, darling."

Weiss sighed. "I should have figured most of the planning would fall on me."

"Yeah? Like you don't love it?"

"Maybe I do. That's not the point. I also want to get a budget together."

"I'll give you access to my accounts. Make them our accounts."

"Thank you, again."

"Of course. Have you… have you picked out any names?"

"Names for…?" she trailed off.

"Your children."

"Our children, you mean."

"I meant opposed to Ruby's babies."

"It depends on who they look like and their gender. Citron if they had your hair. Maybe name them after my sister… maybe. If that's alright with you. Or name them after you. Cloud is a pretty name. Maybe Nebel. It's palettable to both of our schemes, so is Mica or Pearl or Opal."

"I'm fine with naming one of them after your sister. I'm a little flattered you'd name them after me. Pearl and Opal sound so sweet as well. In the spirit of naming them after Ruby a little."

"Like I said, Cloud is a pretty name. So is Ruby."

"Would you take my last name?"

"Yes. I'll leave the Schnee's name behind. Let it be dirt for all that I care. My family can have that."

"I take it your family isn't on the guest list."

"Is yours?" Weiss fired back.

"Yeah I'll call my Mother. See if she's interested."

"You dumb blonde," she rolled her eyes at me but she was smiling softly with her pink smooth lips. My gaze flickered from her lips to her eyes. They were so crystal blue.

"I like Pearl and Citron the most."

"It depends on who they take after. They'll definitely have pretty blue eyes from the two of us?"

"You think my eyes are pretty?" I asked.

"Don't be thick. You always had good looking eyes."

"Wasn't good looking enough to get your attention freshman year."

"You were using that fake personality. Very unattractive. I had seen plenty of boys with fake personalities like that in Atlas growing up. It's a hardcore turn off for me. When you let that go that was when you became attractive."

"So you like that I'm honest with myself?"

"Correct."

"Yet you dislike that I hate myself?"

"Where are you going with this?"

"You need to pick one of those two."

"No I don't. I just need to help you see yourself. Allow me to reveal to you those parts of you that you don't know about."

"I'm a criminal."

"Have you broken the law?"

"I've never been caught except in Atlas."

"And that was pardoned."

"I abandoned my post."

"There were extenuating circumstances. You don't give yourself enough credit and you're fast to undermine yourself. We'll work on that. You especially will in therapy."

"Fuck therapy. All they do is ask about your family."

"Tough. You need it."

"Would you like to talk about your family?" I asked. "With a total stranger?"

"This isn't about me." She folded her arms.

"Oh now I see. I was blind but now it's clear. The fog has been lifted from my gaze."

"Shut up," she waved me off.

"No. This is a serious point," I said. "I'm supposed to talk about Salem with somebody I don't know? I'll sound like a lunatic. I'll be locked up in a psychiatric ward and you'll never see me again. How am I going to raise my children from prison?"

"Hospitals aren't like prison."

"You have no idea how bad psychiatric hospitals are. I'm going to have to lie to my psychiatrist and my therapist at which junction what's the point? They can't help me if I'm not honest and they're going to lock me up."

"You said you would do it, has that changed?"

"You're not understanding what you're asking me to do. How am I going to be a father if I'm locked up? How are we going to get married from there? I need you to know what you're really telling me to do."

"You're trying to change my mind."

"A little. Or to reach some compromise. I don't want to spend the rest of my life behind those double locked doors."

"Well I don't want you to either. I want you to get professional help. By well trained doctors and nurses. How can we do that?"

"I'm thinking…"

"I just don't want what you have been going through for you. I want you to have more from life than that. How can I get you real help?"

"I don't think there's anyone who can help me…"

"You need to see doctors. You need a full team working on your mind. You need that, Cloud. I need you to have that."

"Weiss…"

"You can't be around children without serious help. You probably shouldn't be teaching without it and while self medicating on propsychotics. I say this as someone who loves you. You need a team of communicating professionals to be working on you or you're dangerous."

"I am dangerous…"

"You agree, then?"

"I was and am a proponent of the idea that I'm an accident waiting to happen ever since Atlas. I just thought you couldn't see it."

"I can see it. In Atlas you were getting help… or so I thought. I heard Blake's points. She thought you were a ticking time bomb and you were only getting stronger. It scared her, I think. It scared me too. I saw it. When you fought my sister and Blake you destroyed them. I saw why she was afraid but I had hope that you were getting better thanks to those professionals. Maybe things will be different here in Vale. They might not decide to lock you in. Can you see what I want for you?"

"Weiss…"

"I want you to have a whole staff assisting you instead of trying to manage your mind alone. Especially as your condition gets worse. I want you to have as good of a life as you can. And walking around high to numb the pain isn't it. It doesn't work for me. And it won't fly when you're a father. I won't have someone high and experiencing psychosis alone with my babies. And Ruby shouldn't either."

"There's just so much guess work in finding the right meds. And it truly is suffering like you won't believe when you're on the wrong batch. And I'm not crazy. There's nothing to fix. It's not like I'm schizophrenic where I have some bad balance in my brain or because I don't process serotonin or dopamine properly. I have an alien force in my thoughts for real. I don't have delusions and my hallucinations are my Mother pressing my buttons."

"But you can't be taking things that induce psychosis around our children. You're too powerful to be unstable around kids. It's a recipe for disaster. I won't allow it."

I grimaced.

"Let's see what we can find. Maybe you're right. Maybe things will be different here in Vale."

"We can find and afford a private doctor. And a private therapist, someone who is really excellent. I want you to have the best help there is."

"Okay Weiss."

"You're not happy about this, are you."

"No. I'm really not."

"But you must agree I make good points."

"I do. I'm just… I'm just not looking forward to this. It's taken me a while to reach a point with the weed that it doesn't drive me crazy to be on it. Getting to this point wasn't easy and trying to balance the chemicals in my brain like this was hard."

"You fight on this stuff. It impairs you. You're on it all the time. You're high all the time. I'm scared for you."

"This isn't going to go well…"

"I need you to have a good attitude."

"I really don't want to do this…"

"But you'll do it?"

"Of course…" I muttered.

"Thank you."

"Whatever you want, darling."

"Then you'll give up crime as well?"

"I need eyes to see my sisters coming. Especially if I'm going to have a family. They'll be targets for the Arc sisters. I need to know if they're coming to the very best of my ability. That means using criminal contacts."

"Let's see what Ruby thinks."

"No. I need my extra eyes and ears on the ground. I'll give the drugs and alcohol but not this. I have to know if my sisters are making moves. I have to. Think of how disastrous it could be if Saphron caught us by surprise and targeted our children. Seriously consider it. And please reconsider. My sisters aren't a joke. They will kill our children if we give them half an opportunity. I have to have early warning. If more than one of them show up I don't know how to handle it. I can match a couple of them if I come in with an edge but if they ambushed us as a group we would be in serious trouble."

"You won't back down on this?"

"Please don't make me. My sisters scare me and they ought to scare you too. This is just like me giving up drugs to make our family safe. It's exactly like that. I need to be able to see my sisters coming. That means using every single criminal contact I can grab."

"Okay. I still want to talk about it with Ruby. You feel pretty strongly about it despite how deep you are because of it."

"Accidents happen. But I'm handling it."

"I don't like it."

"It keeps us safe. Please. Keeping a network looking out for them is healthy. They would have brought down the satellite if I didn't have early warning against them. It's a problem. They are a serious problem. You have to do better than 'I don't like it.' My sisters will kill you and Ruby. What will I do then? Seriously what will I do then?"

"I'm listening. We'll talk it over with Ruby."

"Thank you."

"On a different note the Beacon dance is coming up…"

"I always wanted to ask you to that. I didn't because I figured you'd say 'no.' Plus there was Neptune."

"And now?" She wondered.

"Now I'm sleeping with you. How nuts is that?" I asked.

She hit me with the back of her hand and giggled a little.

"I think you have to attend," she went on. "As a chaperone."

"What about you?"

"Oh? Are you asking me to the dance?"

"Um…" I felt like the answer to that should be… "yes?"

"I'd love to go with you. Thank you for asking."

I felt dumb.

"You really have to spell things out for me, don't you," I realized stupidly.

"Sometimes. Other times you're incredibly perceptive. It's really very queer. You can pick up my feelings easily enough at times. Then at others you manage to miss the point and I have to drive it home to you."

"Yeah… Ruby had to confess to me first. And you. And Pyrrha," I agreed.

"Any other girls you feel like you should mention?" Weiss asked.

"No, that's it," I responded.

"That's all you know of, sure. As well as Neapolitan. What about the princess?" Weiss pressed.

"You know it's so weird. We had the strangest conversation the other day. The day after you showed up. She was pissed off and asking about you. I couldn't get to the bottom of it and meant to ask you."

"What happened?" Weiss wondered.

"She was angry that I never mentioned you or Ruby to her. Because of our little trio whenever I'd get asked about my love life I would just say that it was complicated and not explain."

"Oh lord. 'It's complicated doesn't' mean what you think it does, Cloud. It means that you're available but not looking for a relationship at the moment. It doesn't mean, 'I'm involved with two girls,'" Weiss said it slowly so I could understand.

"Seems pretty complicated to me…" I trailed off. I still didn't understand. I felt big and slow and just incapable of knowledge.

"You silly fool. The crown princess has the hots for you."

"Unlikely," I disagreed.

"As unlikely as you marrying Ruby and I?" She parsed.

"I'm not engaged to Ruby yet," I pointed out.

She hit my chest again. "You know she's going to say 'yes.' This is what I'm talking about. If I hadn't confessed to you then you would have no idea I liked you. If Pyrrha and Ruby hadn't done the same you would be clueless," she argued.

"That doesn't mean Rosé has it for me," I pointed out.

"Oh? You're on a first name basis with her?"

"We're friends in a queer sort of way."

"She's probably not the only student either," Weiss informed me.

"What?" I wondered.

"Come on. You're smart, talented, powerful, and kind. Plus you're a teacher. A young teacher. A young handsome teacher."

"You think I'm smart and handsome?"

She hit me again. "Stars and stones! Of course I do." That was pretty slick.

"Then what does being a teacher have to do with it?" I wondered.

"What's not to like about authority and knowledge?" She asked rhetorically.

"I'm asking the questions here." And I was. I had so many questions. Just because I was with two girls didn't mean I understood them and I would seriously take all the help I could get. I felt clueless.

"You're dense and you always have been. And I'm starting to think you always will be." Her tone was affectionate and she was giving me this wonderful half smile that made my heart flutter a little. She really was drop dead gorgeous as she looked up at me. That scar just accented her face and gave her this sharpness that was hard to place. She reached up and brushed a hand through my spiky hair and against my scalp.

"In my defense-" I started. I didn't get very far.

"You have no defense. You silly, silly man. You're lucky you're honest."

"Why is that lucky?" I asked. "Pretty sure that's just me. That's not _lucky_."

"You just go around collecting hearts don't you. You can't help it."

"I don't notice it," I replied.

"Good. Let's keep it that way. Shall we?"

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


	163. Gainsborough VII

**This is a really good chapter. Among my best.**

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Rosé PoV)

Cloud looked good in a suit. He made the boys around the hall look immature and scraggly. It gave me problems in my thighs and knees to look at him in those slacks. He had a simple jacket and light blue collared shirt with no tie. It showed off his chest just a little with that top button undone. He looked cut. Fuck me sideways but he looked even taller and more handsome than he did in his hunter get up. He'd dropped that dangerous edge and just looked dashing all out. His hair was still spikey and messy. It flared all over the place and I bet running my fingers through it would be so satisfying, like yellow silk and warm as sunshine.

I looked cute and adorable in my dress. It was a pink gown that made my hair flair brightly in my ponytail. I had a diamond tiara and necklace that made my eyes glow. I was at my best and I had more than a touch of make-up to my face to accent my cheek bones and make my face rosy. Some mascara was on my face to draw out my eyes.

Unfortunately Weiss Schnee looked beautiful. She was wearing a blue dress slit at the thigh all the way up to her waist and it showed off her right leg extravagantly. It teased the imagination with a swish of crystal blue. Her long waist length hair was down and flowing over her shoulders and down her back. It looked smooth and velvety. Her breasts looked full and I was fairly confident that she was only wearing a little eyeliner and that bullshit was just natural. Her beauty was otherworldly with that pale skin and blue eyes. She was good looking even for a huntress. She stood out even in a room full of huntresses looking their best.

She made me look like a kid that was trying too hard. I hated that. It looked effortless too. She was boxing me with the kid gloves on and I was losing and hurting. She walked around in heels like she was made for them. Her curves just flowed and she made the boys stare. They couldn't help but double take at her. I hated them for that. I hated her.

I didn't think I could hate her more but then Cloud walked over to her and gently guided her by the hand out onto the dance floor. She smirked at him with that scar accenting her face and whispered something that only he could hear. He laughed at her words. His laugh was smooth and rich and full of sex.

They danced together elegantly like two rivers meeting. She swayed with her hips close to his pelvis. Not so close that they were grinding but close enough that it would turn most men on. They stepped in unison and I was sure they could taste each other's aura. I knew Cloud's flavor was delicious and dangerous but I had no idea what Schnee's consisted of. Cloud took her hand and spun her in a circle. Her tight dress didn't flare out like mine would have. Instead the slit in her dress flashed over her hip bone and smooth thigh. Just to hint at everything beneath the tight gown.

Cloud grabbed her by the waist and easily tossed her into the air. Weiss Schnee couldn't have weighed more than one hundred twenty pounds and Cloud could bench press a truck. He must have thrown her gently ten feet in the air but rather than squeal in surprise as I might have done she handled it with grace. She knew he would catch her. She shut her eyes and let out a laugh and twirled in the air like she was made for it. She landed in both of his arms in a bridal position.

"Just dropping in?" He asked.

It must have been some private joke.

"Did you really just…?" she laughed and hit his chest with the back of her hand. I bet she got a good feel for him when she did that. A nice shot of his aura straight to hers and a touch of his muscles. He had broad shoulders with thick chest muscles that led to a narrow, dangerous waist. "You remember that?"

"Of course…" He whispered but I caught the words by the way he moved his mouth. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hung off of him while he held her. She pulled in on him and he moved his head low and kissed her. There was no tongue but it was full with meaning and deep. They were both smiling where their lips met.

I looked away.

"Yikes," Peach mumbled.

"I know, I know. I'm looking at the same thing you are," I agreed.

"It's quite the spectacle. Who would have thought he could dance too?" Pine asked. "Ready to pack this in, girls? Maybe get some punch?"

"Oh, I'm thirsty alright," Peach disagreed.

Cloud set Schnee down. Schnee leaned in close and whispered something directly into his ear. Cloud sighed but nodded. Schnee turned on her heels and walked out of the hall. He watched her go with so much force I thought it might shock her. He shook his head a little then made his way over to the punch.

"Now's our shot," Peach said.

"Don't try it," Pine warned resignedly.

"I'm going for it," I decided.

I left my friends.

I walked up to Cloud.

"Miss Gainsborough?" Ouch. A stab there. "Here for the punch?" No, you fucking idiot.

"I actually wanted to ask you for a dance."

"I see…" something scared lurked there in his tone. What could frighten him? He swallowed some punch without meeting my eye. "Of course. I'd be happy to dance with you."

Really?

"It won't bother your girlfriend, will it?"

"She's my fiancé now." He had a quiet smile and he was watching my face. There was trepidation in his gaze. "A recent development. And we have both yet to ask Ruby. Weiss is confident she'll say 'yes.'"

Oh shit. They were putting a ring on him.

"Still… I wouldn't want to step on any toes by accident." I would love to stomp on Schnee's feet very hard given half the chance.

"No… it should be alright. It's just a dance."

"Just a dance," I echoed.

"In fact she rather warned me something like this might happen. Told me to be ready. Shall we?"

What the fuck?

He tugged me out onto the floor by the hand much like he did with Schnee. He led well in the dance. One hand by my side above my hips rather than on them and the other hand clasping mine. His aura went down smooth at this proximity. Ozone and rich burnt sugar. He hummed with power even though he held me at just under arm's length away. He twirled me and I couldn't help but smile.

I was never able to get very close to him and let him feel my body. And compared to Schnee's body I wasn't sure I wanted to try. Maybe it would be for the best if I held my cards close to my chest and didn't try and compete with Schnee like that directly. Despite all that, he spun me easily into his chest and I felt more like a princess than I had in all my life. His hands were on my waist and in my own as he led the way. He smiled at me gently but there was something fearful and resigned as I looked back up at him. I couldn't quite place it. Was he afraid of his fiancé? What was happening?

I was holding my breath. We were so close. I could feel him through my skin. He had me spun around so my back was close to him and my arms were crossed and holding his hands. We swayed together so close that it was intense. The heat of it was torching me. He was closer than he had ever been beyond training and melee but still it lacked that intimacy that I wanted. He still held my butt away from his pelvis. I wanted to be even closer to him but he kept me distant. I felt like I was going to be struck by lightning or set on fire or something else disastrous was about to happen. I was just waiting for the spark and then, soaked in gasoline, I would light up.

The song ended and so did our dance. He bowed to me a little and shuffled uncomfortably. I felt on edge. I needed some air. At that moment I knew that he knew.

"Thank you…" I murmured.

"Of course," he acknowledged quietly, just a whisper like he was afraid his voice would shatter me like glass. Peach was waiting in the wings by the punch to get a dance of her own.

He knew. How did he know?

I strode away. Out of the hall and to a balcony. The doors closed behind me and only then did I manage to breath.

I made my way to the edge and leaned over it and drank in the cool night air. I hadn't realized how hot I was and that I had worked up a light sweat dancing. But that wasn't what left me breathless. He did. It had been everything I wanted. So what was missing? A certain je ne sais quoi. It made me feel scared.

He knew.

I heard the doors to the balcony open behind me. The click of heels followed.

"He's a good dancer, isn't he? He was always a good dancer," I heard the woman's voice that I wanted to hear less than any other in the entire world.

I didn't try and pretend like she didn't know. She would be able to see through me if I tried to lie. I said nothing but she continued.

"That was true even before he was Cloud Strife. And he became Cloud quite a bit earlier than he knows, I think. But he was always a good dancer. One of the things that his father taught him."

"His father?" I turned to gaze out at Weiss Schnee from where I leaned on the balcony. "What are you talking about?" I demanded.

"He used to be Jaune Arc. Then Beacon fell and he became Cloud Strife. He changed in his entirety. He was one person then another. Jaune Arc died."

"Jaune Arc?" I asked.

"His name before he knew himself. He asked me out incessantly before midterms. I always turned him down. It was bothersome. I didn't need him annoying me all the time. I couldn't see it then."

"You turned him down? Why? He asked you out and you shut him down? But now you're engaged to him? How did that pan out?" I couldn't imagine turning Cloud down if he ever asked me. It was shocking to hear that Schnee had. And they ended up together anyways.

"He came on with this fake personality. Over confident. I'm sure you know the type, what with your being a princess. You've met the occasional boy like that at galas and balls. Boisterous with nothing to back it up. They think they can pull off the 'lady's man' and win the girl. It's so transparent. And Jaune Arc wasn't even good at pretending at it or playing the role required. It was pathetic to be completely honest." Cloud? Pathetic? It was alien to my ears like she was speaking another language. "Surprised?" She asked.

"A little. It's hard to ever see him as pathetic. Maybe a little dense but never pathetic."

I did know the type of boy she was talking about. They were the least genuine people in the world. They lied to everyone including themselves. I'd danced with some before at balls and concerts. I guess the Schnee had too. We had that in common. We had more than that in common if I really thought about it.

She laughed and it was a noise that would have made even Pine's bell-like laugh sound empty. "Yes, he is maybe still a little more than a little dense. It turns out it was because he himself had no idea who he was that made him act that way but then who could blame me? I do bear some fault but some of it was happenstance. He was the weakest person at Beacon bar none. He had no talent. He was clever but not wise so he came across as dull."

To hear that he'd been the weakest student at Beacon was a shock. He was so powerful now that you could feel it if you stood close to him. Your aura gave you a dull throbbing warning that something hazardous to your health was nearby. I'd grown to like it a little. He was so dangerous it was sexy.

"But all that changed," I interpreted. "He isn't like that any more."

"His partner died. He gave up the act. He worked hard. That's what his semblance actually does. I'm sure you've seen it. You're the one he trained before he taught here. He wrote about you often. Maybe you have heard the name: Limit Break?"

"I didn't know that was it's name."

"A semblance is the manifestation of yourself. And his manifested as the ability to push himself past his limits. What does that say about him?" Schnee pressed.

"He trains hard."

"But he works that hard at everything that he does. When I next saw him after Beacon fell he had given up that false facade. He let the mask go and he was alarmingly competent. He had real experience behind him. He didn't hit on me again but he did look after me in a sort of odd distant fashion. He crushed people's skulls for me. He dropped the act and became himself. He didn't really care about trying to impress me but he did anyway. Instead of being the weakest of us he was among the strongest and only growing in power. At Beacon I never saw that in him. That spark. I regret that. His partner saw it. My partner saw it. I couldn't see it. I usually pride myself regarding my ability to see through people but I missed it in him."

"What do you want?" I demanded. Had she come just to rub it in my face?

"To explain why I let you dance with him." My stomach dropped a little and I felt wary of Pine's warnings. It had been a trap after all. Schnee had set me up. I should have been even more afraid that I got the dance than if I didn't. She'd seen me coming and others like me. She had been ready. Walking out had been a trick all along. She'd given Yuma, Peach, and I the opportunity but only so that she could pin us down. "Or are you not interested in knowing?" She asked. She raised a delicate eyebrow over her scar and I wanted to punch her in her nearly perfect face. That one scar-flaw seemed to only highlight her beauty rather than detract from it.

"Let's hear it."

"He has poor self esteem. He hates himself. I think that's a part of what pushes him to be better. That's my fault in part. I rejected him… cruelly... at times. Slammed the door in his face literally and metaphorically. It influenced him during the formative period of his life. He doesn't believe that he's attractive. I told him that there would be plenty of girls who would ask him to dance tonight given the opportunity."

"You used me."

"You used me," she shot back. "How long did I leave the hall for before you were on my fiancé and drinking in his aura like a live wire? I let you dance with him. You ought to be grateful to me because I allowed it. I granted you permission to touch him and I'm a jealous, possessive woman."

"You share him," I pointed out.

"With Ruby, yes. I share everything with Ruby. She is my sister and she will be my wife. All my secrets and flaws belong to her. And what's sharing a man we both love in light of that? I love her as well. She also belongs to me. That's hardly the same as letting some foreign, alien, stranger paw away at what is mine. And he is mine. I didn't see his potential before but I was given a second chance. I'm not about to let that go now. And if you served the purpose of reducing his self hatred and improving his image of himself just a little, then it was worth it."

I fell into furious silence. I glared at the woman before me.

Inside a song stopped and a new one started before I spoke again.

"I should have had a shot. He never told me about you. Either of you. I had no idea he was taken. So yeah, I fell for him. It's on you that you didn't when you first met him. That's your fault. It should have been your loss. And if you rejected him harshly and he's still dealing with that then that's on you too. Then you used me for leverage. That's not fair."

"You deserved a shot? His partner deserved a shot. That's what's not fair. She's the real heroine here. She saw it from the start. She kept him alive. Thank the merciful gods she kept him alive and taught him what he needed to know. He would have died alongside her given the choice. He resents his survival but I don't. She opened the door to his potential. And the lucky survivors gain the spoils. Pyrrha Nikos deserved it more than anyone. He's not over her death and I don't think he ever will be. I struggle to hold that against him. She was his second friend after Ruby and the first person in his entire life to ever really believe in him. I think he loved her. He might still. She played such a huge role in the beginning of his life. And I'm sorry he didn't tell you about us. He is reserved. He's that way about his family and relationships. He's always been that way. And the trauma he has experienced hasn't helped. But you're right about one thing. I should have been out. Luckily Ruby wanted me and him both. She begged him not to make her choose. Luckily she was willing to share him with me and he's willing to share her with me. I could have been out. Just like that." She snapped her fingers. "I got lucky. I got a second chance. And you want to talk to me about fairness? After making moves on what's clearly mine? I used you and you used me. That's about as fair as it gets in this world. That's business, princess."

"You told him I was in love with him. That was for me to share if ever I wanted to. He was afraid of me the entire time we danced."

"Afraid of you or afraid for you? He never would have realized if I hadn't told him. And all I told him was that he should be ready for girls to swarm him at the dance tonight. Then I informed him that a girl wouldn't ask him unless she liked him. That's just how we function. You played yourself. You walked into it and revealed your hand. That's not my fault. And you got your dance with another woman's man. That's more than you ever would have received otherwise. And let's not act like if you knew he had a distant girlfriend that would have stopped you from falling in love. It didn't stop me from falling in love with Ruby and Cloud when they were together. That happens to people irregardless. And your love is fake pressure. You don't know anything about him. It's infatuation not love that you feel but you are young and the difference is subtle."

"So what happens now?"

"You move on. You've had your fun but he deserves to sleep and to not be worrying about every other girl's heart. I'm going to ask Ruby to marry me. Cloud's going to ask her to marry him. She's going to say yes to both of us. It was her idea, this trio. She wants it. I'm going to get Cloud to stop abusing propsychotics. That blank stare scares me more than his frown. And he will give it up if I ask him to. He'll get professional help to deal with his trauma and manage his psychosis. Then we're going to get married. And after that we'll have our family."

"In the time you have left."

"Before…?" she wondered, leading me along.

"Before Cloud dies," I clarified.

"He told you?"

"He told me."

"He must have thought you two were good friends. Ruby and I still hold out hope for a cure but we intend to make the most of what time we have."

"Are we not still friends?" I wondered.

"I'm willing to bet that's up to you. Cloud will be uncomfortable with the notion he held your heart in his hands. He is so… naive when it comes to the hearts of women. But he can move past it if you give him the chance. And then you'll be friends for keeps. And he's a good friend when it comes down to it. A valuable, reliable friend."

"I deserved my shot."

"You deserve to know why you don't deserve a shot. You're a kid with energy. Cloud needs rest. After everything he has been through he needs time to heal. You get to know why. And I've explained to you why you don't get an opportunity. You never had a chance. You loved the idea of Cloud but you don't know him well enough to love the real him. That's why you're out. You're a foolish girl playing a woman's game. But that's life. I got two chances, Ruby seized her's, and you and Pyrrha never had any. It happens. We live in a cruel world. It hurts. It's bullshit but it's a fact of life. It kills us. It's the worst. But it does have it's bright moments if you can find them. Cloud can still be your friend. You can have that, yet. But he will be my husband. That's happening for certain. How you deal with that is on you. Enjoy your evening."

Then she turned and left me out on the balcony to probably go crush more hearts after she had flattened mine.

I turned back out over the vista. I gazed over the walled and lit gardens of Beacon and the deep fountains that lined the courtyards. And I cried nearly silent tears.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	164. Proud Ice Queen XII

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

(Weiss PoV)

I think I was starting to get through to Cloud. He was the type you had to show something to. You couldn't just tell him and expect him to get it.

My parents taught me many forms of persuasion either accidentally or on purpose over the years. I fortunately didn't have to reach too deep into that bag of tricks to start convincing him he could live a pretty normal life with us. Ruby's dream was still possible. And I was calling it Ruby's dream out of convenience. No ulterior motive at all. I refused to over analyze that.

Because it really wasn't just Ruby's dream. Cloud wanted it too. So did I. We all wanted it. The only real obstacle in many ways was Cloud himself. He needed to be shown that it was just and true. He needed to know we wouldn't abandon him. He needed to stop resenting himself. And it seemed that that was falling on me. I wished that Ruby was here. She was good at getting through to people but then again she hadn't succeeded with him so far. So maybe I could do it. It was possible. I just had to play my cards just right and be slow and systematic. That's how I could 'fix' him.

And that wasn't a bad way of putting things. Cloud was broken in many ways. I wasn't saying that it was his fault. He had been through a great series of traumatic ordeals. He was hurting. He had a lot on his plate all of the time. More than anybody else alive probably. More even than Oscar who faced his own series of trials. Cloud just needed a hand or four. I could help him and he seemed willing to accept my help. I just had to do my best. It needed a firm, stern touch. I couldn't be compromising and flexible or he would stay his course.

I just wanted the best for him. And I knew he wanted the best for me. And we were it for each other. I just needed to make him understand that. It wasn't like his heart was closed to me or he denied his passions. Quite the opposite was true in fact. I'd felt his passions against mine. They were fulfilling. His obsessions were oblique off of our ordinary dream. He just needed a minor twist and things could be perfect.

Was I emotionally manipulative? I didn't think so. I wasn't playing with him except for his body. I was open with him about where I wanted to be. I told him the ways I wanted him to change. I didn't try and sleight of hand my way around things. Maybe that was emotional manipulation but then so was him calling me 'darling' when I was mad at him. Then every interaction I had became abuse. That wasn't true and it wasn't fair to say. He was willing to change just because I had asked him to. There was nothing underhanded or gaslighting in that. It wasn't like my father holding out affection until I did what he wanted and then like a dumb kid I just tried harder to be what he wanted me to be. It wasn't like Cloud's mother playing with his mind while he slept and gearing up psychic assaults. It was pure. It was me telling him what I wanted and him agreeing because he loved me.

And we still had some kinks to work out. I wanted him to give up the crime game but he made several really convincing points. He was afraid for our family and the damage his sisters could cause. That wasn't irrational. It was true and meaningful and I was glad he hadn't tried to hide his fear from me though he probably could have made the attempt.

Dealing with the Gainsborough girl had been hard but so easy. She needed to be told that all hopes of her dreams of touching what was mine were dead. She needed to know that. We spoke the same language. And I made it clear. I was willing to share him with Ruby but no one else would even make me consider it. And he was willing to share Ruby with me. That was a blessing. But I was maybe a touch clingy.

I didn't grow up in a household where affection was freely given. I liked it and I liked what was mine. I liked when Ruby touched me. I liked when Cloud played with my hair. That belonged to me and if it made me possessive then so be it. I always had material things all my life. Maybe that made me territorial about the people that were mine. Now that I'd had a taste of being loved I wasn't about to let it go. Not for the world. So I wasn't happy when Cloud danced with some girls. I allowed it only to help him if at all possible. I wasn't onboard with adding another girl to our trio. I loved Ruby and Cloud. And while I felt sorry for Rosé Gainsborough I wasn't about to let her in on what belonged to me.

Maybe I was the jealous type because I also resented Neapolitan even though Cloud hadn't been dating me at the time and I had been making moves on what was his girlfriend unilaterally. I'd wedged myself in. I felt like the odd one out for a long time. I wasn't about to start letting some random girl with little thoughts have a slice of my birthday cake. It was my birthday cake. It was bad enough Cloud had slept with Neapolitan and didn't break off his friendship with her. And it was a little unjust of me to ask him to. It would be overstepping myself to order him to even though he would if I asked. Just because he would do something if I told him to and I wanted to tell him so didn't mean that I should tell him to. That would be abusing the power I had over him. The power which he gave me over him of his own free will. That was the road to being controlling and emotionally abusive beyond just being possessive.

And there was nothing wrong with being possessive. I loved the people I loved and wanted their attention. There was nothing outlandish or hurtful in that alone. In fact, that was an expression of love. Maybe it was twisted and cold love but I was twisted and cold from the way I was raised. That probably wasn't a good thing but it wasn't a bad thing per se. But when I overreacted and became over excited that was when problems started cropping up. Should I really scream at every girl that danced with him or even track them down and talk to them? No. It was just a dance. I talked to Gainsborough because she reminded me of me. That was different. If I was her in my position I would shut me down too.

And it wasn't like I could blame Cloud for being himself. Dense and appealing. He's had no idea he was collecting jars of hearts.

Cloud had eyes only for me and Ruby. Acting like he didn't would be unbecoming and untrusting. And he was trustworthy. He wanted to marry me. Not some first year girls. He wanted to be engaged to me. He didn't ask them what they thought or whether it impacted them. He just did it. And it was the same with Ruby who I knew was demisexual. She wouldn't be sexually attracted to me if she didn't love me and the same was true for Cloud.

So I gave Rosé a little chat that I thought would put her in her place a little. Just a reminder that because she touched him once with my permission did not mean she would get any more than that. She may well have been heart broken but that happened. It even happened to me after a spell in Mistral.

But I was in it now and I was holding on and I would only let go if I died. Gainsborough and any other girls didn't get a cut of that. Cloud Strife belonged to me and Ruby. He was ours to tease and taunt and draw out. And there had been hiccups in sharing Ruby with him and him with Ruby that I wouldn't trade for anything now. I had worked hard to get where I was and discover my own sexuality: bi and maybe a little demi. Something grey like that. I worked hard to feel comfortable between Ruby and Cloud. Cloud worked hard to never show favoritism to the point where I genuinely felt like he didn't have a favorite despite that Ruby had been first. He called us by different pet names and he treated us differently. I wasn't sure how Pyrrha would have factored into this if at all. I didn't much like to think about that. I thought about it anyways.

Both Ruby and I would have been out if Pyrrha had survived. Was I supposed to be glad she died or something sick? And Cloud wasn't over her despite the passage of years. Was I not supposed to be a little jealous? How was I supposed to handle Pyrrha? I didn't know. Cloud didn't even know how he was supposed to feel about it. That put him through pains. I hated to see him hurt like that but there wasn't much I could do because I had no idea how to feel about Pyrrha Nikos myself. I didn't have any good advice and he really had been so young. He'd been a kid. We all had but he had been new to the world and everything. She had been so integral to his formative few months. And then she took him by the hand and guided him. She opened the gates and allowed him to become himself. Especially through her death. Her death unarguably changed him permanently. Would I love him if he were different because she had survived? What a brutal question to have to ask. And if I wanted to be able to help him I had to ask that sort of question.

What a burning feeling it inspired in me. What a source of pain. Pyrrha was a fountain of agony for all three of us and I had no good answer for helping Cloud heal from this pain that shaped him. And I was glad he had been formed in such a way even if I didn't like what it had cost. Could I love the plastic and hate the cast? He had been molded by this unbearable crucible and I wasn't sure I would love him if he hadn't been shaped in such a way. If Pyrrha hadn't died I don't think he would have become the man I loved. If Pyrrha hadn't died she would have him and have no real desire to share with me. With Ruby it had been different because she loved me and I loved her. If Pyrrha had survived she would not have loved either of us the way we love each other. She would have Jaune and I wouldn't have this threesome I had now. And I loved this trio and it hurt to think of a world without it. It hurt to think that that world might be the better of the two, especially for Cloud. What white hot pain was this I was putting myself through? But I had to consider it. I had to think it through if I wanted to help him. I had to understand how we got to where we were now. I had to finish what Pyrrha started even if it hurt me to even think of it. Ruby must have thought about it some but I was rather confident she was unwilling to really truly think this through because it hurt so fucking bad to do it.

That meant that I had to do it.

Because I loved him and wanted the best for him. It fell on me to look at things even though they were brutal just like it fell on me to massacre Gainsborough's heart. I couldn't let her go on thinking she had a chance. That would just make Cloud more distraught and cause her more pain in the long run. I had to be a bad, petty, ice cold, bitch. Partly because I was a petty, ice cold, bitch. I wanted what was mine and I wasn't afraid to hurt some feelings to make that heard. I had been an ice cold bitch to Jaune Arc as well. And now I had to be an ice cold bitch to Pyrrha even in her death. Because of her death. In spite of her death.

If Pyrrha had lived I wouldn't have my threesome. And you know what? I liked my trio. It was mine. And mine. And mine. And not Pyrrha's. That was my man and he wasn't Pyrrha's. I couldn't afford to think like that. Ruby might not be willing to take such a hard stance but it was necessary to help Jaune get over her and start healing. He'd avenged her but he openly confessed that Cinder's death brought him no peace. And why would it? It didn't deal with the heart of the problem.

At his core, he believed he should have died and Pyrrha should have lived. If not that exactly then he desired something similar. And I didn't want that. I was glad at how things panned out even though it cost me a friend and wounded him so grievously. I wouldn't love him if he hadn't been hurt and been forced to change. I was glad in a sick and twisted way the Pyrrha had died. And I wanted to share that with him and Ruby. It was optimistic predetermination. It was pessimistic liberty. It made me sound like such a bitch even in my own head.

Of course I would rather she had survived. Of course I missed her. But. But she did die. I couldn't change that. Cloud couldn't change that. She was gone forever and she left Ruby and I with a half finished sculpture of bronze and marble. We could leave it unfinished. Or we could make the most of it ourselves. And we could do it without feeling guilty. Because Ruby, Cloud, and I deserved it. Cloud especially after all he had been through. Cloud had had it pretty fucking rough, not going to lie. He had been put through an absolute gauntlet and it still wasn't over for him and I was asking him for even more when I told him to give up his drugs and try antipsychotics again.

What a mess.

Things were horrifically interwoven and tangled even without more girls being involved. Cloud didn't need to be worried about more girls and their hearts. He needed to rest for the first time in his entire life. And here was the selfish, ice cold bitch part: I wanted to rest with him. I wanted it to be me and Ruby and Cloud and no one else. And I was glad that it was me and Ruby who had it. I was happy it fell on me to shepard this era into play. The very same side of me that was looking forward to planning my wedding was happy I was playing keep away and trying to help Cloud get over Pyrrha. I looked inside myself and all I saw was me. I was a whirling blizzard and I was happy. I liked where my life had gone even if I never would have seen it coming like this. I liked that Cloud liked me so much that he let me in and forgave me for slamming the door in his face. I liked how hungry he was for my body and my personality. He seemed to drink up every single part of me with thorough pleasure. He swallowed me like fine drink. He was intoxicated on the sound of my voice. I loved that. I was glad I had that. The power I had over him was savory and sweet.

And while I never thought it would be for me, I didn't mind the polygamy. It was Ruby I was partaking in as well. Her body, her personality, her life, her secrets, her weaknesses, all of it. I was glad Cloud had decided to share her with me. From the outside looking in, he seemed like the lucky one with two girls on each arm. But it was really me that was the lucky one. It was me he decided to let in and because Ruby had begged him not to make her choose between us. I was the lucky person in all this. I got a second chance with him, someone who became an almost ideal man before my very eyes, and I got to marry my partner and best friend. I couldn't ask for more.

And maybe all of that made me frozen and needy and possessive and clingy and cold. Maybe I liked it that way. What was a girl to do besides her best?

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	165. Cameras Ready I

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

I smoked a nail of concentrate by the window and exhaled it. The burning rush of the mixing pro and antipsychotics flared against the inside of my skull. It was early on a Monday morning but there weren't any classes. The students and teachers had a break. I was taking my time to really soak it in.

"What are you doing?" Weiss asked from behind me.

"Taking a dab."

"You promised to quit."

"We haven't found a psychiatrist yet. I promised to quit then. Not right away. Didn't I? You can't expect me to be on nothing. Just raw dog reality? Can you? Do you?"

"I'm not sure… We better find a psychiatrist soon, then. You have a letter by the way."

I took it from her and opened it and began to read.

**Dear, Professor Cloud Strife,**

**We would like to formally invite you on October 16th to Live Tonight with Lisa Lavender where you will appear as a guest for an interview. **

**Please return this letter with your reply promptly so that we can prepare. You are also welcome to bring a guest to the studio but they will not be joining you on the stage floor. The interview would last for sixty minutes and the questions would remain mostly to your position as Beacon and how you arrived to be a Professor there. **

**We humbly hope that you will accept. You're an interesting figure and we believe that you have quite the story to tell. **

**Yours by proxy,**

**Lisa Lavender. **

I reread the letter once more while I sat at the dining room table. The morning light filtered in and made Weiss's eyes glow. I glanced up at her and held the letter out with two finger for her to look at. She took it from me. Her eyes left me and I found myself missing their caress against me while she read.

"An interview isn't a bad idea in its own right…" Weiss mumbled after a moment. I watched her lips move with such intensity that I barely heard her.

"What do I do if they ask me questions I don't want to answer?"

"You simply can not answer them. It isn't a big deal and silence is usually safe."

"Will you come with me? I'm allowed a guest."

"Of course I will."

"What should I be careful about?"

"Well… Ruby and I. Poly relationships aren't unheard of but they are uncommon. You mentioned that you want to keep your semblance under wraps and perhaps for good reason. Your family should be off limits but you should already know that. My family is off limits and I'd be careful about talking about Ruby's family."

"I don't know that much about Ruby's family anyways."

"Just things like that. It's important to maintain your secrets while keeping to your image as an educator. Remember how that reporter asked you some questions about neutral, advantage, and disadvantage? There should be a little more of that. They'll ask you what sort of things you teach like that. It's important to have that in your pocket, your teaching materials."

"But I still don't know what they'll be looking for. You know what I mean? What should I be careful about walking into? Are there traps?"

"Probably. Probably plenty of traps to watch out for. Lisa Lavender will try and catch you in a bad situation if you give her the opening. So just don't give her an opening and if you do then retreat and get back to neutral."

"You make it sound like a fight."

"It is a little bit like any battle. She'll try and put you in disadvantage with her words so that she can get a blurb or a headline. That's her job. Your job is to represent Beacon Academy and your position well. She would like to embarrass you if possible and gain that headline. She'll go after any cut if she smells blood. It's important that you not bleed and remain calm. You have nothing to hide regarding your position at Beacon. It's only your personal secrets that will be juicy for her."

"I think I understand… if only you could be whispering in my ear the whole time and giving me advice. But is there any actual reward for doing this?"

"Well, you could talk about how you worked with the Atlas military. Help reduce some of the tensions and put people at ease with those airships looming overhead. Maybe make my job a little easier if you do it right. They'll probably ask you for your thoughts on Atlas, the satellite, and the airships. Especially if they know you served in the Atlas military which they could."

"So I could end up helping you out a little? I'll do it. What else will they ask me about?"

"Raven Branwen if they know about it. You killed her and brought peace to two continents. That's serious. If they know that you're responsible they will definitely bring it up."

"It's not like I destroyed every bandit tribe…"

"But they aren't united anymore. They are fighting one another instead of just the civilized groups. Don't underestimate that fact. They were much more dangerous and competent as a group than they are as individuals. And sure, there are still some large nations which managed to remain united with Raven's fall. But they aren't the threat that they once were. Raven Branwen was a serious problem. You should expect them to bring it up. Along with Beacon's fall and the part you played in Black Out Day. And the more they learn the more interesting you will seem. You've played a serious role in every major historical event since you were born. You do have a story to tell. The more you say the more that fact will come to light. From Beacon, to Haven, to Branwen you've lived through so much."

"I didn't have a birth," I reminded her. "Oh gods, what if they ask when my birthday is?"

"Pick a date. You really should pick a date anyways if only for Ruby's sake. She'd love to have a day to dote on you."

"And you're what? Chopped liver?"

"Oh, shut up."

"You know you can just admit things to me."

"I'm warning you…"

"You could just be open about how affectionate you are. You're like a cat. You just act like it just so happens you're in the same room as me all the time. Plus you like being pet in your hair. Just open up and confess it. You're just a big fluffy white kitten." I reached out and ran a hand through the hair of her scalp and she closed her eyes in pleasure but she turned away from me. "You're needy and you like attention. You're tender deep down. And soft hearted. Just confess and get it over with. I already know."

"No way. I'm ice cold."

"You're warm and darling. At least to Ruby and I. And that's what matters. You're touch hungry and you would starve without Ruby or I around to love on you. Poor wittle thing," I whispered.

"Careful. Or else… and I'm not little!" I walked into my bedroom and she followed me. I sat at the foot of the bed and she joined me.

"Or else what? You like sex as much as I do. Don't act like you'd suddenly stop sleeping with me. You love sharing my bed and waking up in my arms. You're so adorable I just want to kiss your forehead and coo at you. And you are little. You're so small. I could just scoop you up and swaddle you. Face it, Weiss, you're baby."

"I'm not a baby!"

"You are too," I whispered.

"I'm a cold hearted bitch."

"Baby," I reinforced. "And you like it too. You love being the little spoon."

"...it feels nice…"

"I'm not blaming you. It's just adorable how you try to hide how soft-centered you are. Face it. You've got the facade where you're cold and unfeeling but you are like putty. You melt into me when I kiss you. You're absolutely so endearing. And you put on this delightful mask and try and cover it up when you really just want to be held and squeezed and doted on. You'd love it if I had a birthday so you could be affectionate as well. You just blame it all on Ruby because you have to keep that mask up."

I leaned in close to her face. She looked away and her cheeks were rosy instead of their typical pale hue.

"Look at me, darling dear."

"...no…" she whispered.

"You want to look at me. You're so winsome. Why do you resist and put on that mask? I've already seen through it and so has Ruby. You're precious and you need to get over that."

I kissed her cheek in a peck. She turned even further away from me where we both sat on the edge of the foot of the bed.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close to me. She still didn't look at me so I kissed my way down the back of her neck. She leaned into my affectionate touch. I sucked softly on the spot just under her ear.

"You better not leave a mark…" she cautioned.

"But you kind of want me to… on our honeymoon I'm going to mark up your pale skin so badly people will have no choice but to realize you're mine. And you'll let me because you like it. You like how possessive I am over you. You like it when I'm passionate towards you. Admit it. Just confess. You're not fooling me."

"So what if I like being held and kissed and touched?"

"You try and fight it; it's so cute. I did always dream of you being ice hearted to everyone but me."

"I'm like this towards Ruby as well…"

"So I have to share you with Ruby. That's not a big deal to me. And she's much more open about her affection so I can't tease her about it the way I can with you." I ran one hand down to the inside of her thigh and gave it a soft squeeze. I rubbed a little circle into her flesh with my thumb.

"So you're glad I'm a part of our threesome?" She asked.

"Of course…"

"Even though I wormed my way in through Ruby?"

"You didn't worm your way in. Ruby couldn't live without you and I was always attracted to you. Is someone feeling self conscious? Is someone feeling vulnerable? Stars above, you're like a box of caramel milk-chocolates."

"I am not!"

"You're so sweet," I mumbled. I pulled on her chin with one hand so that she had to face me. Her eyes flickered away. I kissed her gently on the lips and she sighed out through her nose. I hugged her lower lip between both of mine and she melted into my body where I held her from behind. She whimpered softly into my lips and I grinned against her's. She pulled away slightly. She reached down and removed my hand from the inside of her thigh and she cleared her throat.

"...shut up…" she managed.

"Make me," I challenged. "Prove me wrong, darling."

"Don't call me that."

"You like when I call you my darling. You're just too prideful to admit it. It's okay. I see through you. You're so soft and warm. Your aura is so gooey and creamy. You taste like a custard or iced coffee with plenty of sugar. You go down smooth. I can't get enough of it. I'm hungry for you, Weiss. Let me taste you." I kissed down her face to her neck and I slowly pushed her back down onto the bed and rolled on top of her. She spread her legs and wrapped them around my waist and let out a little moan.

"Don't you have classes to prepare?" she asked.

"I'm so busy at the moment it's not even funny."

"We can do this later."

"Is that a promise?"

"A little…"

"I'm going to hold you to that."

"I already offered to have sex with you basically whenever you wanted."

"I thought that was just to get me to stop hurting myself."

"It was… and it wasn't…"

"You really love intimacy. Gods above, you're so precious. And to think that you're mine whenever I want…"

"Basically whenever you want…"

"Maybe I should call in a sick day for all my responsibilities… Do you want me to? And we can just live in this bed together until evening and do whatever we want with one another."

"Whatever we want _to_ each other. I… I miss Ruby. I wish that she was here with us. She really knows how to touch a woman."

"And I don't?" I genuinely wondered.

"It's not quite the same. I miss her. We have something in excess without her around. It's not like some piece is missing but rather like we have too much of something. It's hard to define and harder to explain. But I'm not fulfilled without her here. I feel like the shattered moon Diana. I'm not whole without my sister-wife."

"Sister-wife?"

"Ruby will be my sister and my wife after we're married. There's a place in my heart she fits perfectly into. Without her I feel a lack of balance. Something is wrong. There's a chunk of my heart designed to overlap with her's where we fit together. You and I fit together. But without Ruby's piece we have too much. We're three different kinds of puzzle pieces. All of us are edges. But Ruby has double wings. I have a wing and an ear and you have double ears. There's just too much between the two of us and we need Ruby to not only fill in the gap but to receive those parts of us that are in excess."

"I had no idea puzzle pieces had names like that. What did you say you were?"

"I have a wing and an ear. Ears fit into wings."

"Is it because I'm a man that I have double ears?"

"Maybe? It was just a metaphor. Don't over analyze it. That ruins it. Tabs fit into the blanks and without Ruby we just have tabs sticking out into nothing. There's too much of us and we aren't fully interlocking."

"It's a cute metaphor. What did I tell you? You're lovey-dovey, darling."

"Quit calling me darling."

"No. You like it," I insisted. "You do. You look at me with your eyes so bright. You can't help it. You've fallen into my trap and there's nothing you can do. You may as well enjoy it. I miss Ruby too. But the three of us will be together soon. And you're confident she'll agree to marry us, so we have that."

"Of course she'll agree to marry us," Weiss said. She was laying flat on her back with my body between her legs. Her hair was strung out behind her in a great silvery pool. "She begged you not to make her choose between us. She wants us. She wants both of us. She wants your babies. She wants me to help mother them. It's all she ever wanted. She dreamed of this. I bet she had all kinds of fantasies about it."

"Dark twisted fantasies. Like all of us holding hands. So vile it makes me sick to my stomach."

Weiss laughed a little. "I'm serious."

"Me too," I pointed out. "She's so perverted it's nauseating."

"Although she probably has had fantasies of the other kind as well…"

"You think so?"

"I do. You know how submissive she is in the bedroom. She's probably fantasized about the control we have over her."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"You might be a seductress but you're not exactly little Miss Dominant. Do you fantasize about being dominated."

"That's inappropriate."

"Inappropriate? We're engaged and alone. Tell me your wildest fantasies. I can't make them come true otherwise."

"Oh I bet you would just like to know my fantasies. You think that would give you an edge over me. Not happening."

"Yeah. You're right. You're one hundred percent correct."

"You don't deny it?"

"That's why I want to know. I'd love to have that power over you. I'd love to make you writhe about in ecstasy. Is that a fault of mine? I openly admit it. I'd love to have the power to make your legs quiver."

Weiss was quiet and she didn't look at me down between her legs. I ran both hands under her shirt and over her tight stomach. I traced across her ribs and belly and she let out a fluttering sigh.

"Well maybe I can figure it out on my own. You do like it rough. Definitely something worth exploring. You like it when I get behind you and pull your hair. Maybe I should follow that trail and see where it leads. Would you like that? If I was more rough and controlling with your body?"

Weiss was quiet in the loudest fashion imaginable. "None of your concern," she managed.

"You're going to be my wife. It doesn't become more my business than that. That's fine. Don't tell me. I'll figure it out. I'll just have to explore and unwind you."

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

**-WG**


	166. Cameras Ready II

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

The set I was led into was nothing like what I imagined. There was a couch, an armchair, and a desk on some carpet but it was all false. It was made to look like a whole room when in reality it was missing three walls and a ceiling. Above the fake room were metal struts with bright lights shining down on the armchair and couch in particular. Then the set had cameras on cranes and equipment of all sorts pointed at it. It was an illusion and a false room with one tan fake wall with a pseudo window in place behind the couch of foggy blue glass.

Someone with a tag came up to me and attached a microphone to my shirt without a word. Then the young woman pointed at the couch. "Have a seat there, make yourself comfortable."

I agreed and leaned back on the couch. I was in my hunting get up but somebody took my weapon from me when I entered the building. I missed the familiar weight in this unfamiliar environment but I'm not sure what I would have done with it had I been allowed to keep it.

The couch and armchair were a soft purple and red respectively and the desk was a hard dark brown.

I recognized Lisa Lavender. She was wearing a suit with slacks and a jacket and a dark blue button up shirt with a collar. She was in heels and had on set of crystal purple earrings on. The same assistant that came up to me walked up to her without a word and attacked a microphone to her collar.

Then Lavender came towards me. I stood up from the chair and held out my hand. She was only a few inches taller than Weiss which left me most of a foot taller than her. She was slim at the shoulders such that I was closer to three times as broad as she was than two times as broad. Her stature reminded me of Weiss in terms of how she was built with slender legs as well. She took my hand softly and shook it. I was wary of crushing her little hands. She was a civilian.

"Cloud Strife; it's a pleasure to meet you," I said softly.

She smiled up at me and let go of my hand. "Lisa Lavender; the pleasure is all mine, Professor. Won't you sit again? Let's ignore the cameras and just have a nice chat."

I sat down at once. A camera on a crane lowered and pointed directly at me. I found it difficult to ignore.

I had no idea what to do with my hands. Why did I not know what to do with my hands? They were just hands. Where did hands go? I ended up folding them over my lap one over the other.

A man with a headset held up three fingers before us and Lisa sat down in the armchair. "And we're live in three… two… one..." the man counted down.

Lights on the camera's flickered to life.

"Hello, I'm Lisa Lavender with _Vale Tonight_ and today I'm joined by a special guest, Professor Cloud Strife, Beacon Academy's very own combat instructor," she addressed the cameras directly, then she turned to me. "How are you tonight, Cloud?"

"Doin' well," I managed. "And yourself?"

"Very good, thank you for asking," she returned. "Tell us a little about what you do for Beacon and Vale."

"I help students master their weapons, semblances, and fighting styles to prepare them for the opponents they will face in their role as Vale's protectorate."

"Opponents like the Khagan Branwen whom you killed in single combat."

"Bandit leaders are definitely included in that, sure. I wasn't aware that was such public knowledge."

"Khutan Branwen was no ordinary bandit leader. How did you manage to overcome her when Valean and Mistrali militaries failed.

"That's true enough… Raven's power allowed her to escape most traps. In order to defeat her I had to come up with a way to destroy her before she could open a portal and run. My power lets me become stronger and faster for a period. With the right timing I was able to engage her, put her in disadvantage, and destroy her before she could escape."

"And did you know the Khaganate would shatter without her in play?"

"That was the general hope."

"But you weren't certain and in Anima alone the number of raids has increased by one hundred and sixty percent since you killed her. The shards of her empire run rampant across two continents. You must confess some responsibility for that. And now we hear that you weren't even certain the Khaganate would collapse."

"That's temporary. These are the death throes of her empire. No Khaganate has ever outlasted the death of the Khagan for long. Without real leadership and Branwen's organization and with communication back up things will eventually go back to the way they were before Black Out Day. Of course I'm in part responsible but Raven had to go down and she was never going to die quietly."

"On the subject of communication let's discuss the satellite; how do you feel about the Atlas having a presence in Vale again?"

"It's a good thing. Vale and Atlas were close before Black Out Day. There's no reason that should change because of some terrorist hackers and the actions of the White Fang. Vale's enemies want us to hate Atlas and to remain divided. Atlas support can help deal with the bandit tribes that remain."

"But Atlas showed up with a military force with no warning. How can you justify that?"

"Atlas should have communicated that they were moving with Vale. But they had to keep the existence and movement of the satellite a secret. Look at the bombing of the airfield. If the bombers succeeded in attacking the satellite we would still be in the dark days."

"But Vale is democratic and there was no referendum to move the satellite here and then Vale had to bear the brunt of the bombers. Atlas may work in the dark but Vale doesn't. Vale is open with its citizens. The fact that Atlas moved without Vale's express consent and installed a military force which led to a bombing of Valean airfields is not alright with many Valean citizens. Especially in light of the events of Black Out Day. As many as fifty-five percent of Valean Citizens polled want the Atlas military to withdraw from Vale's airspace."

"That's exactly what the bombers want. We can't give in to fear because we all know what that will bring. It's not like Atlas wants a war with Vale."

"But you can see how their presence is domineering. Atlas can't just violate Valean airspace with military operations whenever they please, can they?"

"We should expect moving the satellite to be the exception rather than the rule."

"But Atlas machines slaughtered Valean citizens in the streets on Black Out Day. How can we feel safe with Atlas once more occupying Vale?"

"I fought on Black Out Day against Atlesian machines. I know the damage they caused. But it's the hackers at fault for the tragedy. Not Atlas. These terrorists want to divide Atlas from the rest of the world. It's critical that they not succeed."

"What about your ties to Atlas?" Lavender interrogated.

"My ties to Atlas?" I wondered.

"You've served in their military for one. You are involved with Weiss Schnee, former heiress to the Schnee dust company."

"I don't see what my personal engagement to Weiss has to do with my loyalty to Vale. I served Vale on Black Out Day even when I could have ran. So did Weiss. Many of Beacon's students fought. Yes. I also served in the Atlas special forces for a time. But it was only to assist in my pursuit of those criminals that caused Black Out Day. I killed Adam Taurus, Mercury Black, and Cinder Fall while working with Atlas. I hunted Vale's enemies."

"And what about your mental state?"

"What about it?"

"You were incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital in Atlas. You experienced trauma during Black Out Day and probably more during your time spent as a hunter. Then all reports indicate that you're in the ninety ninth point nine percentile of hunters in terms of power. How are Valean Citizens supposed to feel safe when someone with as much power as you have walks around unchecked with no mental support and safeguards for your mental state? What were you diagnosed with during your stay in the psychiatric hospital in Atlas? Are there any safeguards in place that could hold you back if you ran rampant as reports seem to indicate you did in Mistral and Atlas? You were inducted into the Atlas Military as punishment in the form of time served to compensate for crimes you committed. That was under the condition that you be treated for your psychosis? Are you still receiving treatment? Are Beacon's students safe with you?"

"I wasn't aware my stay in the psychiatric hospital was a matter of public record. But I was diagnosed with PTSD and schizoaffective disorder. We're… I'm looking for a psychiatrist and therapist I trust here in Vale. I currently self medicate."

"What is schizoaffective disorder?"

"It's psychosis like schizophrenia with a mood disorder but unlike schizophrenia the psychosis is independent of that mood disorder."

"And your power? Reports from Atlas indicate you have a grab-bag semblance with Mover five, Brute eight, Trump four, Striker eight, Blaster three, and Breaker six ratings. This report indicates you are exceedingly dangerous and from what we can gather you are mentally unstable. How do you respond?"

I reeled back slightly. I was stunned.

"I suppose that it depends on how you define mentally unstable… I was worse in the past and my condition has greatly improved since my incarceration. Headmistress Goodwitch seems to have faith that my condition is merely an obstacle to my work. It doesn't prevent me from doing my job and keeping Vale safe. I was the one who fought the bombers at the airfield and forced them to flee. There's no really powerful evidence I can give that I'm not dangerous or that I'm mentally stable. I am dangerous. Just not to Vale."

"We're just supposed to take you at your word that you're reformed and trust our future huntsman and huntresses to your care?"

"At the end of the day you have to take the patient at their word when it comes to mental health. And if you have a problem with my appointment you should address the Headmistress. I'm not a threat to Vale or Atlas or Mistral and while I've never been to Vacuo I'm not a hazard to their peace and prosperity either."

"You also trained Princess Gainsborough. She was in your care for a matter of months and you were her coach at a recent tournament. Was she aware of your instability?"

"I never shared that with her. No."

"The Princess of Vale had only the company of a dangerous and potentially mad man for a third of a year and she did not know about it. And what about your 'engagement' to Weiss Schnee? Is she aware of your condition?"

"She is…"

"What do you think attracts her to you as a mentally unstable walking weapon of mass destruction?"

"What did you just call me? You realize that I'm also, like, a person, don't you? I'm not just a sword with a human form attached to it. Not all the time, at least. And again, not unstable. Perfectly stable."

"But you're not currently receiving treatment for your psychosis and you haven't been for some time now. You don't see how that's a problem for someone with enough strength to rip a person in half. You're a high rated Brute and are very fast and capable of changing states and gaining even more power. Eye witness reports say that you destroyed Raven Branwen in a matter of a second with your Striker power. If you were to decide to start killing Valean citizens is there any good way of stopping you at all?"

"The Headmistress might be able to slow me down or even stop me."

"But you're not even sure if that's enough. Just how much power do you have? How sane are you?"

"I'm sane enough and I have enough power to get the job done and keep people safe."

"Who keeps us safe from you?"

"My loved ones and friends."

"And that's enough?"

"I think so…"

"But once again you're unsure. You won the superpower lottery and you're not stable."

"How am I supposed to be sure? It's a catch twenty-two? What should happen to me? Should I die or be locked up? All because I won the lottery? There's nothing to be done. How many other hunters could you put the same argument to? And yeah I'm under stress. Hunters tend to be. This job kills us and I've watched my whole team die. That sort of thing happens but we don't lock hunters up because we need them. Unfortunately you need people like me who can kill people like Adam Taurus. That's just the nature of the beast. And stop saying I'm unstable. It's not true. I'm about as stable as hunters come. I'm ready and able to do more and take on more responsibilities. I don't need to be shut away. And you don't want me shut away. I'm too useful to the good side. And I am on the good side."

"Who is the good side?"

"People. I'm constantly defending people from all sorts of monsters, be them Grimm and other people. Like Cinder Fall. Who would have killed her if I didn't? I'm not a part of the problem and inciting any kind of distress between hunters and civilians is a recipe for disaster and you ought to know better."

"So I'm a problem?"

"You certainly could be. Every bit as much as I could be."

I glared at the woman. But… she had some good points. If only she knew how bad things really were with my Mother and all. If only she knew the struggle I faced every day to keep people like her alive so she could sit there and accuse me of all sorts of bullshit. I worked hard to be a good person despite my evil nature. I overcame my evil nature and did good. I saved lives. I put off stopping my father to help train other hunters. I struggled. I rebelled. I was terrified. All so this bitch could try and feed off of me? I wanted to rip her in half but that desire and that action would only prove her right. If only she had an inkling into my struggle. I killed my friends with my own weapon while an alien monster goddess mind fucked me half to death. I was so much more dangerous than she knew and she knew quite a lot. But still, to ignore the strides I had made and the revolution in my heart and to challenge it even unknowingly incensed me. I was literally trying to save all of humanity. Every man, woman, and child alive had their hopes resting on me even if they didn't know it. And yeah I did it mostly for the women in my life and my friends. But I still did it.

"I think we're done here," she said.

"I agree. Thanks for the chat," I managed. "I'm glad I could enlighten you."

If only I could enlighten her into how bad things really were. My sisters were out there and they were powerful enough to shake my resolve. They outnumbered me one to seven. There was only one magical demigod on the side of humanity and there were seven demigods and one entire goddess aligned against us. This bitch had no idea how close to extinction we ran every single moment of every single day even without my Mother and just the Grimm to worry about.

I sighed.

If only I could actually enlighten her. I would sound like a mad man. And perhaps I was crazy. My mother's machinations made me more than a mad man. I'd gone around the twist a long time ago and I'd done it again. Then I came back. And the truth was that people should be scared. Mother wasn't idle. She wasn't the sort. She'd bring them despair if it took a thousand years. And she had the time. I didn't.

**pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq**

-WG


End file.
